1

BETWEEN TASTE AND HISTORIOGRAPHY:

WRITING ABOUT EARLY RENAISSANCE WORKS OF ART IN

VENICE AND FLORENCE (1550-1800)

Laura-Maria Popoviciu

A dissertation submitted in fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in

Combined Historical Studies

The Warburg Institute

University of London

2014

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I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own

_______________________________

Laura-Maria Popoviciu

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ABSTRACT

My dissertation is an investigation of how early Renaissance paintings from Venice and

Florence were discussed and appraised by authors and collectors writing in these cities

between 1550 and 1800. The variety of source material I have consulted has enabled me to

assess and to compare the different paths pursued by Venetian and Florentine writers, the

type of question they addressed in their analyses of early works of art and, most

importantly, their approaches to the re-evaluation of the art of the past. Among the types

of writing on art I explore are guidebooks, biographies of artists, didactic poems, artistic

dialogues, dictionaries and letters, paying particular attention in these different genres to

passages about artists from Guariento to Giorgione in Venice and from Cimabue to

Raphael in Florence. By focusing, within this framework, on primary sources and

documents, as well as on the influence of art historical literature on the activity of collecting

illustrated by the cases of the Venetian Giovanni Maria Sasso and the Florentine Francesco

Maria Niccolò Gabburri, I show that two principal approaches to writing about the past

emerged during this period: the first, adopted by many Venetian authors, involved the

aesthetic evaluation of early Renaissance works of art, often in comparison to later

developments; the second, more frequent among Florentine writers, tended to document

these works and place them in their historical context, without necessarily making artistic

judgements about them. A parallel analysis of these two approaches offers a twofold

perspective on how writers and collectors engaged with early Renaissance art from the

sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME I: Dissertation

Abstract 3

Acknowledgements 8

Editorial Principles 10

List of Abbreviations 11

General Introduction 12

PART ONE: VENETIAN ART WRITINGS

Introduction 22

Chapter 1. The Reception of Early Venetian Works of Art in the Writings of Francesco

Sansovino 23

Dialogo di tutte le cose notabili che sono in Venezia (1556) 25

Venetia città nobilissima (1581) 26

Works of Art in Churches 27

Works of Art in the Scuole 33

The Palazzo Ducale 34

The Second Edition of Venetia città nobilissima (1604) by Giovanni Stringa 36

The Third Edition of Venetia città nobilissima (1663) by Giustiniano Martinioni 39

Chapter 2. Could Early Renaissance Paintings be considered Marvels of Art? Carlo Ridolfi and the Biographies of Early Italian Artists 44

Chapter 3. Marco Boschini’s Writings and Contemporary Texts on Painting 57

La carta del navegar pittoresco (1660) 57

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Le minere della pittura veneziana (1664) 60

Looking at Art through Marco Boschini’s Glass Panel: Le ricche

minere della pittura veneziana (1674) 65

New Additions to Le minere 71

Chapter 4. ‘Taste and Scholarship’ in Eighteenth-Century Venice: Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger 74

Descrizione della pittura veneziana (1733) 76

Artists and Works of Art Not Mentioned by Zanetti 80

Works of Art Mentioned Only by Zanetti 81

Della pittura veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de veneziani maestri (1771) 82

Chapter 5. Collecting and Connoisseurship 93

Giovanni Maria Sasso and His Network 93

The Correspondence with Abraham Hume 98

Sasso’s Venezia pittrice and Its Context 101

Notizie de’ pittori moderni or the ‘Silence’ of the Works of Art 113

Preliminary Conclusions 116

PART TWO: FLORENTINE ART WRITINGS Introduction 123

Chapter 6. Florentine Guidebooks 128

Francesco Albertini’s Memoriale 128

Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza (1591) 129

Giovanni Cinelli’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza (1677) 143

Paolo Mini’s Discorso della nobiltà di Firenze e de’ Fiorentini (1593) 145

Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Guidebooks on Art 147

Chapter 7. Florentine Biographies of Artists 150

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Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of Early Italian Artists 150

Vasari’s Editors (1647-1794) 157

Carlo Manolessi’s Edition (1647) 158

Giovanni Bottari’s Edition (1759-1760) 160

Tommaso Gentili’s Edition (1767-1772) 166

Guglielmo della Valle’s Edition (1791-1794) 169

Illustrating the Artistic Past in Eighteenth-Century Florence 178

Chapter 8. Views on Early Renaissance Art in Eighteenth-Century Florence: Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri’s Le Vite 182

Pellegrino Orlandi’s Abecedario pittorico as a Source of Inspiration for Gabburri’s Le vite 185

Gabburri’s Le vite 188

The Biographies of Early Painters 192

General Conclusion 198

Bibliography 202

VOLUME II: Documentary Appendices and Illustrations

Appendix 1 224

Appendix 2 240

Appendix 3 243

Appendix 4 247

Appendix 5 251

Appendix 6 253

Appendix 7 256

Appendix 8 261

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Appendix 9 271

Appendix 10 276

List of Illustrations 279

Illustrations 285

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my two supervisors and mentors, Professor

Jill Kraye and Professor Charles Hope. I am also grateful to Professor Elizabeth McGrath

for supervising my work during the first year of my research. I would like to thank all of

them for the many lessons, both scholarly and personal that I have learnt under their

guidance. The time and rigour they have invested in overseeing this dissertation is

immeasurable.

I thank Charles for his immense generosity and attention with which he supervised

my work since I began my studies at the Warburg Institute in 2008. I feel privileged to have

worked under his guidance. I am hugely indebted to him for helping me choose the topic

of this dissertation and for discussing its progress in the meetings that we had. Charles

showed me how to work with primary sources and to interpret them with clarity and

accuracy. He taught me what type of questions to ask in pursuing my research and offered

encouragement and constant help. This dissertation benefitted greatly from his expertise.

I thank Jill for her great dedication and competence with which she supervised my

work in the past three years. I am extremely grateful for all the discussions and inspirational

meetings that we had, the attention with which she read my work and the comments and

advice which he kindly offered me. All these have immensely enriched my work and my

knowledge on the Renaissance.

I am particularly obliged to them and to Jonathan Rolls for their help with the

editorial work involved in all stages of my dissertation.

Financial assistance was provided by Mr David Kowitz, the AHRC, the British

Museum, the Warburg Charitable Trust and the Student Travel Grant Fund. I am also

grateful for all the help and advice offered by staff at the Warburg Institute, the British

Library, the Courtauld Institute Library, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Biblioteca del

Seminario Patriarcale, Biblioteca Marciana and Biblioteca Nazionale di Padua.

Many scholars and colleagues have offered advice and encouragement. These

include Antony Griffiths (British Museum), Hugo Chapman (British Museum), the print

room staff at the British Museum who assisted in giving access to the collection, Joachim

Jacoby (Städel Museum, Frankfurt) and Carmen Bambach (National Gallery of Art,

Washington). I am particularly grateful to Mark McDonald (British Museum) for his

constant support, constructive advice and close supervision during my internship at the

British Museum. I would also like to express my gratitude to Caroline Campbell (National

Gallery) for her generosity and support during my internship at the Courtauld Gallery. I

have benefitted immensely from their knowledge.

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Finally, I am grateful to have had the support of great friends, many of whom are

art historians. These include Barbara Tramelli, Micol Flocchini, Niall Hodson, Lucian

Lechintan and Dragos Nastasoiu. I wish to extend my appreciation to Bishop Virgil Bercea,

Vlad Petruş, Father Gabriel Buboi, Father Cristian Crisan, Alexander Baumgarten, Carmen

Pistea, Flaviu Turbui and the friends and staff at the International Lutheran Student Centre.

I dedicate this thesis to my parents Marius and Liliana Popoviciu and my

grandmother Veronica Popoviciu. I thank them for everything.

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EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES

All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own.

When quotations are taken directly from manuscript or printed sources, the original

spellings have been retained without the addition of modern accents or punctuation.

I have given full bibliographical references on the first occasion a work is cited; for

subsequent citations, I have given only the author and the short title. Full bibliographical

references for all works can also be found in the Bibliography.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DBI Dizionario biografico degli italiani

NGA National Gallery Archive

Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591) Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Firenze

(Florence 1591), ed. J. Shearman, Farnborough 1971.

Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Firenze, ed.

Giovanni Cinelli, Florence 1677.

Sansovino, Venetia Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima, Venice

1581.

Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia Francesco Sansovino, Venetia, ed. Giustiniano

Martinioni, Venice 1663.

Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia Francesco Sansovino, Venetia, ed. Giovanni Stringa,

Venice 1604.

Vasari, Le vite (1550) Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e

architettori (Florence 1550), ed. G. Einaudi, Turin

1986.

Vasari, Le vite (1568) Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e

architettori (Florence 1568), ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols,

Florence 1998.

Vasari/Manolessi, Le vite Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Carlo Manolessi, 4 vols,

Bologna 1647.

Vasari/Bottari, Le vite Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Bottari, 3 vols, Rome

1759-1760.

Vasari/Gentili, Le vite Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Tommaso Gentili, 7 vols,

Livorno, 1767-1772 .

Vasari/della Valle, Le vite Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Guglielmo della Valle, 11

vols, Siena 1791-1794.

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

‘Time is a long staircase and the centuries are

its steps; from Raphael one descends to Cimabue

just as from Cimabue one ascends to Raphael.’1

My dissertation is an investigation of how early Renaissance paintings from Venice and

Florence were discussed and appraised by authors and collectors writing in these cities

between 1550 and 1800. In the first part of my study, which concerns Venice, my timeline

begins with an analysis of the first edition of Francesco Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima

published in 1581,2 continues through the artistic literature and collecting activity of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ending with a discussion of Giovanni Maria Sasso’s

Venetia pittrice, written in the second half of the eighteenth century. The second part, which

deals with Florence and follows a similar structure, begins with Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the

Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1550,3 and concludes with the

encyclopedic effort of Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri to compile the biographies of all

artists up to his own day in his Le vite de’ pittori, datable to between 1739 and 1741.4 The

variety of source material I have consulted has enabled me to assess and to compare the

different paths pursued by Venetian and Florentine writers, the kind of questions they

addressed in their analyses of early works of art and, most importantly, their approaches to

the re-evaluation of the art of the past. Among the types of writing on art I explore are

guidebooks, biographies of artists, didactic poems, illustrated art history books, dictionaries

and letters, paying particular attention in these different genres to passages about artists

from Guariento to Giorgione in Venice and from Cimabue to Raphael in Florence. By

1 Guglielmo Della Valle, Lettere senesi sopra le belle arti, 3 vols, Venice 1782-1786, II, p. 267: ‘Il tempo è una lunga scala, e i secoli ne sono i gradi; da Raffaello si scende per essi sino a Cimabue, come da Cimabue si sale a Raffaello.’ 2 Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima, Venice 1581. 3 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (Florence 1550), ed. G. Einaudi, Turin 1986. 4 Initially, Fabia Borroni Salvadori dated the manuscript to between 1719 and 1741. More recently, however, Alessia Cecconi suggested that it was written between 1739 and 1741; see A. Cecconi, ‘Nella presente aggiunta all’Abecedario pittorico del padre maestro Orlandi. Per una rilettura delle Vite gabburriane’, Memofonte, 1, 2008, pp. 1-23, at pp. 11, 18; see also http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/cecconi_1_2008.pdf.

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focusing, within this framework, on primary sources and documents, as well as on the

influence of art historical literature on the activity of collecting, illustrated by case studies of

the Venetian Giovanni Maria Sasso and the Florentine Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri,

I show that two main approaches to writing about the art of the past emerged during this

period: the first, adopted by many Venetian authors, involved an evaluation of early

Renaissance works of art, which reflected, to some extent, the artistic preferences of the

time; the second, more frequent among Florentine writers, tended to document these

works and place them in their historical context, without necessarily making judgements

about their artistic quality. This parallel analysis of these two approaches will offer a

twofold perspective on how writers and collectors engaged with early Renaissance art from

the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

The reassessment of early Italian works of art from the perspective of later

generations led scholars of the twentieth century to address a number of issues concerning

the development of the taste for paintings of the early Renaissance.5 The first important

study of the reception, or fortuna, of the ‘primitives’ was Lionello Venturi’s Il gusto dei

primitivi, published in 1926.6 Venturi explored the theme of re-evaluation in art, with a

particular focus on the ‘primitives’, that is, artists from the Duecento to the Quattrocento,

and their reception throughout the centuries. The conclusion at which Venturi arrived was

that early works of art deserved to be appreciated more than the modern ones because they

were more pious.7 While it is true, as I shall show, that the religious element had long

played an important role in assessing works of art of the early Renaissance, and that some

of the authors with whom I deal touched on this devotional aspect, the issue of the

rediscovery of the ‘primitives’ is a far more complex one and deserves to be readdressed. In

this dissertation, I trace how attitudes towards the art of the past developed from the

sixteenth to the eighteenth century, what changes occurred and what factors determined

them. I also challenge Venturi’s conclusion by proposing other angles from which the

reassessment of the art of past between 1550 and 1800 can be explained more accurately.

My aim, therefore, is to look at the ways in which historiography, antiquarianism and

connoisseurship influenced and contributed to the reception of the ‘primitives’.

5 By ‘taste’, I mean appreciation or preference. 6 L. Venturi, Il gusto dei primitivi, Bologna 1926. 7 Ibid., p. 14.

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In his La fortuna dei primitivi,8 Giovanni Previtali examined the reception of the art of

the past between the Cinquecento and the Settecento. His approach consisted of a critical

overview of the attitudes of different writers on art to the works of early Renaissance

painters. While the main sources he referred to were Italian guidebooks, biographies of

artists, art treatises and historiography books, he also mentioned French, English and

German ones. In the appendices to his book, Previtali presented the views of foreign

travellers to Italy on the art of the ‘primitives’ and gave examples of eighteenth- century

collectors exclusively interested in acquiring works by artists of the earlier generations. My

study supplements that of Previtali by offering an in-depth analysis of the primary sources

concerning early Venetian and Florentine works of art and challenges it by showing that

writings on art and views on collecting early Renaissance art works should be treated

together rather than separately. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind that while

appreciation depends on works being on public display and is bound up with a good

understanding of art history, collecting depends on the existence of a supply of objects for

sale. So, as I shall attempt to show, collectors were advised to purchase paintings by earlier

artists whose names were praised in writings on art, provided such works were available on

the market.

Furthermore, Previtali suggests that views of and preferences for the art of earlier

generations developed over the three centuries covered in his study.9 I assess this

interpretation by analysing the artistic vocabulary used over this period, in order to identify

changes in taste and to determine how these affected the reception of the ‘primitives’.

Both in his Il gusto dei primitivi,10 and in The Preference for the Primitive,11 E. H.

Gombrich explored this topic, emphasizing the role and meaning of ‘primitivism’ in art.

Drawing on Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas’s Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity,12

Gombrich made it clear that he did not employ the term ‘primitivism’ in either of the

8 See G. Previtali, La fortuna dei primitivi dal Vasari ai neoclasici, Turin 1964. 9 The most recent publication on the reception of the ‘primitivi’ which dwells on Previtali’s study is the catalogue accompanying the exhibition entitled La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte dalle collezioni italiane fra Sette e Ottocento organized by Gianluca Tormen and Angelo Tartuferi and held at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence between 24 June 2014 and 8 December 2014. It provides the historical and artistic context in which Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-century views on the art of the ‘primitivi’ emerged and developed and offers an overview of the collecting practices during this timeframe, with particular emphasis on Florence and Tuscany; see G. Tormen and A. Tartuferi, eds, La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte dalle collezioni italiane fra Sette e Ottocento, Florence 2014. 10 E. H. Gombrich, Il gusto dei primitivi. Le radici della ribellione, Naples 1985. 11 See n. 5 above. 12 A. O. Lovejoy, G. Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, Baltimore 1935.

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meanings established by these two authors (chronological primitivism and cultural

primitivism),13 but rather as an expression of the desire to rediscover periods from the past.

‘Primitivism’, according to Gombrich, was a movement or tendency which emerged in the

nineteenth century and referred to the re-evaluation of the art of the earlier generations. In

this context, the nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelites suggested a return to the Renaissance

ideal of beauty and especially to artists up to Raphael to whom they had become sensitive.

In addition, Gombrich drew on the tradition of rhetoric in order to explain the

interest in the re-evaluation of the past. Citing Cicero and Quintilian, he concluded that the

return to the past was a nostalgic attempt by later generations to recover earlier

prototypes.14 According to Quintillian, it was also regarded as a fashionable practice among

the elites.15 In my dissertation, I try to determine whether this observation can be extended

to the connoissseurs and collectors of the early modern period.

In my opinion, previous studies of the rise and development of interest in the

‘primitives’ are incomplete, since the topic needs to be addressed in light of the issues,

mentioned above, which earlier scholars have neglected. For instance, Venturi’s view that

earlier works of art were appreciated mainly on account of their religious subjects led him

to disregard historical and artistic factors, which I contend were also an important part of

the story. My belief that there were three main reasons for the appeal of early Renaissance

art – historical, artistic and religious – also calls into question Gombrich’s view that

collectors acquired these works because of their relative cheapness.16 Finally, Previtali’s

separate treatment of writings about art and collecting art works by early masters hindered

his understanding of how these two aspects influenced each other. By contrast, my

investigation looks at the literary tradition in close connection with the activity of collecting,

in an attempt to clarify their similarities and interactions.

It is necessary to establish, from the outset, whether there was a desire on the part

of writers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century to re-evaluate the art of the past and

13 Gombrich, Il gusto dei primitivi, pp. 8-9. 14 Gombrich mentions the example of Roman imitations of ancient Greek statues: ibid., p. 13. 15 Gombrich, Il gusto dei primitivi, pp. 13-14, esp. n. 9, and Quintilian, Institutiones oratoriae, 2 vols, Leipzig 1922, II, p. 263 (XII.x.3): ‘qui post eos [Polygnotus atque Aglaophon] extiterunt, auctoribus praeferant, proprio quodam-intelligendi, ut mea opinio fert, ambitu’. 16 Gombrich, The Preference for the Primitive, pp. 87-144, (‘The Pre-Raphaelite Ideal’).

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to construct a hierarchical ranking of painters.17 I therefore investigate how the art of the

past was perceived to stand in relation to that of more recent generations, and how the

posthumous reputations of artists were established and maintained. To this end, I provide a

detailed analysis of a large spectrum of writings of the period, which, as Luigi Grassi has

indicated, can be divided into two categories: artistic literature and historiography.18 Even

though they belong to different genres and stem from different traditions,19 both literary

and historical writings provide evidence of an awareness of the evolution of artistic styles

and of a revival of interest in the early Renaissance works of art.20

Guidebooks, for instance, promoted artists from different schools and enhanced

their reputations by discussing key pieces of their work, which were displayed publicly or,

occasionally, privately. Moreover, the messages conveyed by these texts were often

coloured by campanilismo in order to illustrate differences or disagreements between cities, or

simply because the writers were mainly familiar with the art of their own locality: several

texts were written to defend the superiority of a local school of painting against the views

expressed by authors from elsewhere in Italy.21 In addition to such polemical positions,

different authors took different approaches to describing art works, presupposing a reader

standing in a particular place: some were expansive, others more selective, mentioning only

those pieces they considered worthy of praise.

While art writers generally tried to give up-to-date information about contemporary

artists and their works, it is striking that authors of guidebooks, in particular, continued to

list, often in appreciative terms, paintings before Raphael in a style which was, or seemed to

be, outdated. I consider how and to what extent attitudes to such past art changed over

time and how knowledge of it increased or became more easily available.

17 By ‘art of the past’, I mean early Italian Renaissance paintings, from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century, especially those artists whose works inspired later writers to express or to allude to ideas of taste. 18 The first of Grassi’s categories includes, among other writings, guidebooks; and the second, biographies of artists; see L. Grassi, ‘La storiografia artistica del Seicento in Italia’, in Il mito del classicismo nel Seicento, Messina 1964, pp. 61-79, at pp. 61-2. 19 See J. R. von Schlosser, La letteratura artistica: manuale delle fonti della storia dell’arte moderna, Florence 1977, p. 527. 20 Of course, some writers were more interested in earlier art than others, and this preference was justified in different ways. 21 See, e.g., Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, 2 vols, Bologna 1678; see also G. Perini, ‘Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters: Insight into Conflicting Trends in Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Historiography’, Art Bulletin, 80, 1988, pp. 273-99.

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Biographies of artists offer an historical perspective, sprinkled with anecdotes, on

the reception of artistic styles and of individual artists. They help to supply us with the

critical tools needed to interpret judgements on and descriptions of the style of particular

artists. Unlike guidebooks, which centre on specific works of art, without providing a

broader view, biographies focus on the careers of individual artists and on the context in

which their works were produced. In their different ways, nonetheless, both genres were

able to transmit views on the art and artists of the past.

In view of the extended chronological timeframe of this dissertation, from the mid-

sixteenth century to 1800, I decided to limit my study to two cities, Venice and Florence,

for both of which there is a wide range of primary source material illustrating how tastes

were shaped and how local artistic culture was promoted. I believe that examining a

selection of writings from both cities in parallel helps to assess and to compare the type of

questions which Venetian and Florentine writers asked, the judgements they made on

artists and their works and, most importantly, their approaches to the re-evaluation of art

and artists from the Duecento to the Quattrocento.

In one of his four talks on the subject of the ‘primitives’, Gombrich explained that

the term was first used in 1797 by one of Jacques-Louis David’s pupils, Étienne-Jean

Delécluze, who, in discussing his teacher’s painting the Intervention of the Sabine Women, stated

that: ‘you find in it no grandeur, no simplicity, in short nothing ‘‘primitive’’’.22 The word

‘primitive’ was sometimes used to refer to the purity of the Greek vase painting; but in the

nineteenth century it began to be applied to the art of the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance, as a way of characterizing the ‘pure and religious style’ of Italian, Flemish and

Dutch artists from the twelfth to the fifteenth century..23 The problem of the periodization

of the ‘primitives’ has been addressed by various modern scholars.24 Gombrich, for

instance, draws on Vasari, suggesting that the endpoint is the early stage of Raphael’s

22 See E. H. Gombrich, ‘The Primitive and its Value in Art’, The Listener, I-IV, 15 February-8 March, 1979 (I: (‘The Dread of Corruption’), pp. 242-5. 23 The term ‘primitive’ was also used in order to refer to earlier periods, as a way to suggest chronological priority; see S. Battaglia, ‘Primitivo’, in Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, Turin 1961- , XIV, pp. 353-5, at p. 354, with quotations from, e.g. Giovanni Boccaccio and Gabriele D’Annunzio. 24 For studies of the treatment of historic and stylistic periods, see J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, London 1937; E. Panofsky, ‘Renaissance and Renascences’, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, Uppsala 1960, pp. 42-113; E. H. Gombrich, Norm and Form. Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, London 1966, pp. 81-98 (‘Norm and Form: The Stylistic Categories of Art History and their Origins in Renaissance Ideals’).

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career, when he was working in Perugino’s workshop.25 Previtali also equates primitivi with

the pre-raffaelliti.26

In this dissertation, I shall be looking at the reception of works of art which were

created in the period from the late Middle Ages27 to 1520, the date of Raphael’s death. Since

I shall be examining artistic development from the perspective of the Venetian and

Florentine writers whose works I analyse, I shall avoid the anachronistic term ‘primitive’ for

pre-1520 art, using instead, intercheangeably, ‘art of the past’, ‘art of earlier generations’ and

‘art of the late medieval and early Renaissance period’.

Peter Burke has argued that it was during the fifteenth century that a sense of

history began to develop in Italy and that this was achieved by fulfilling the following three

prerequisites: ‘a sense of anachronism’, ‘an awareness of evidence’ and ‘an interest in

causation’.28 This line of investigation was carried forward by Patricia Fortini Brown in her

Venice and Antiquity; by looking at chronicles, history books and works of art, she mastefully

explored the way in which the Venetians perceived their own past and traditions.29 The

writings on art analysed in this dissertation also indicate that Venetians and Florentines had

a sense of the past, which was usually conveyed through their juxtaposition of the terms

antico and moderno. As we shall see, however, the way in which both Venetian and Florentine

writers deployed these terms was inconsistent; and, therefore, it is not always easy to

decipher a straightforward meaning.30 Antico variously referred to ancient Greek and Roman

art, to painting before Guariento in Venice and Cimabue in Florence, or indeed before

Giovanni Bellini in Venice and Masaccio in Florence, or even before Giorgione in Venice

25 E. H. Gombrich, The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art, London 2002, p. 91; see also Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 611-12. 26 Previtali, La fortuna dei primitivi, p. 11. 27 Among the late medieval art works I discuss are the mosaics of San Marco and paintings by Guariento, Nicoletto Semitecolo, Jacobello del Fiore and Cimabue. 28 P. Burke, ‘Medieval Historical Past’, in Renaissance Sense of the Past, London 1969, pp. 1-20, at p. 1. 29 P. F. Brown, Venice and Antiquity: the Venetian Sense of the Past, New Haven 1997. 30 For a discussion of these terms and an attempt to clarify their meaning, see E. Panofsky, ‘‘Renaissance’-Self-Definition or Self-Destruction’, in his Renaissance and Renascences, pp. 1-35, at pp. 33-5. He examined Vasari’s terminology and established what he meant by vecchio, antico and moderno: e.g., in Vasari’s view, while maniera vecchia referred to the Byzantine style, maniera antica designated the ancient Greek style. Vasari also applied the term moderno to the art of his own time as opposed to that of the Middle Ages; see Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (Florence 1568), ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols, Florence 1998, I, (‘Proemio delle Vite’), p. 242: ‘Ma perchè più agevolmente s’intenda quello che io chiami vecchio ed antico; antiche furono le cose innanzi a Costantino, di Corinto, d’Atene e di Roma..., perciocchè l’altre si chiamano vecchie, che da San Silvestro in qua furono poste in opera da un certo residuo de’ Greci’, and (‘Life of Cimabue’), p. 249: ‘avevano fatte quelle opere nel modo che elle si veggono oggi, cioè non nella buona maniera greca antica, ma in quella goffa moderna di quei tempi.’

19

and Raphael in Florence. The term moderno, often used in opposition to antico, could refer to

the art of the High Renaissance or to that of the author’s own time. This lack of

consistency can perhaps be explained by the fact that authors tended to construct their own

classifications and divisions of artists, depending on what they regarded as the most

important contributions to artistic development.

Antico and moderno are not the only two terms which will concern us here. The range

of artistic terminology employed by Venetian and Florentine writers will also be considered

in this dissertation. The artistic vocabulary which these writers used was closely related to

that found in works on art theory from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In his study of

art theory in sixteenth-century Venice, Mark Roskill examines the origins of some of the

key terms and suggests that many of them were borrowed from ancient rhetoric.31 Similarly,

in formulating a scheme for painting which consisted of circonscriptione, compositione and

receptione di lumi,32 Leon Battista Alberti drew on an ancient model which divided rhetoric

into inventio, dispositio and elocutio.33 Paolo Pino and Lodovico Dolce, in their artistic

dialogues of 154834 and 1557,35 also divided painting into three parts: inventio, disegno and

colorito. Terms such as bellezza, grazia,36 proprietà,37 gravità, facilità, dolcezza38 likewise belonged

to a standardized vocabulary shared between literary and artistic writings of the time,39

which was adapted, transmitted and enriched by each writer. This same vocabulary was

applied to the description and judgement of late medieval and Renaissance Venetian and

Florentine works of art.

31 M. W. Roskill, ‘Introduction’, in Dolce’s Aretino and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento, Toronto 2000, pp. 5-61. The main ancient sources were Cicero’s De oratore, Horace’s Ars poetica and Aristotle’s Poetics. 32 Leon Battista Alberti, Della pittura, ed. L. Mallè, Florence 1950, p. 82: ‘Adunque la pictura si compie di conscrittione, compositione e ricevere di lumi.’ On the influence of rhetoric and humanism on Alberti’s writing, see Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, Oxford 1971, pp. 121-39 (‘Alberti and the Humanists: Composition’). 33 See Roskill, ‘Commentary on the Text of the Dialogue’, in Dolce’s Aretino, pp. 219-351, at p. 267. 34 Paolo Pino, Dialogo della pittura, Venice 1548, p. 15: ‘L’arte della pittura è imitatrice della natura nelle cose superficiali, la qual per farvela meglio intendere, dividerò in tre parti à modo mio, la prima parte sarà disegno, la seconda inventione, la terza e ultima il colorire.’ 35 Lodovico Dolce, Dialogo della pittura, Venice 1557, in Roskill, Dolce’s Aretino, p. 116: ‘Tutta la somma della Pittura a mio giudicio è divisa in tre parti: Inventione, Disegno, e Colorito.’ 36 On bellezza and grazia, see, e.g., P. Barocchi Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 3 vols, Milan and Naples 1971-1977, II, pp. 1611-12. 37 See Roskill, ‘Commentary on the Text of the Dialogue’, in Dolce’s Aretino, pp. 219-351, at p. 271. 38 For a theoretical discussion of artistic terms such as stile, ornato and rilievo and their application in the Renaissance, see H. Wohl, The Aesthetics of Italian Renaissance: a Reconsideration of Style, New York 1999; see also D. Summers, Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton 1981. 39 See, e.g., Baldassare Castiglione, Il libro del cortegiano, Florence 1947; Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua (1525), ed. C. Vela, Bologna 2001; and Pietro Aretino, Lettere, Parma 1995; see also Roskill, ‘Introduction’, in Dolce’s Aretino, pp. 17-26.

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These writings on art, especially those dating from the late fifteenth and early

sixteenth centuries, contain disappointingly few stylistic comments on individual works of

art. Therefore, it is often necessary to consider which works of art writers chose to

mention, rather than how they described them.

In Part One, after a brief survey of the earliest discussions of art in Venice, I focus

on four key texts by Venetian authors. The first of these is Francesco Sansovino’s Venetia

città nobilissima, published in 1581, together with the subsequent editions by Giovanni

Stringa in 1604 and by Giustiniano Martinioni in 1663. I investigate Sansovino’s accounts

of Venetian art, what these reveal about his appreciation for early paintings and whether his

views on particular works of art were adopted by the later writers. I also consider whether

any early works of art which were left out by Sansovino but included in later editions.

I then analyse a different genre, Carlo Ridolfi’s biographies of Venetian painters

grouped under the title of Le meraviglie dell’arte and published in 1648. I extract and interpret

those passages which gave an indication of Ridolfi’s artistic views and preferences, as both

a connoisseur and a painter, and determine whether he finds models of excellence among

the earlier Venetian artists. Next follows a discussion of Marco Boschini’s guidebook,

which is specifically devoted to painting. His Le minere della pittura veneziana of 1664 and the

second edition entitled Le ricche minere, published in 1674, reveal his attitude to early art and

his rankings of Venetian artists; I also point to significant changes which occurred from one

edition to the other. Finally, I explore two guidebooks written by a major figure of

eighteenth-century Venice: Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger. I place these works within

the evolution of this type of artistic literature and outline Zanetti’s contributions to

Venetian art historiography. My account of these four representative examples of Venetian

artistic literature attempts to illustrate developments and changes in the attitude towards the

art of the past which occurred from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, as well as the

reasons which led to these changes and their implications.

With the same aim in mind, but from a different perspective, I present a case study

showing that textual evidence played a major role in shaping the views of collectors and

connoisseurs and in influencing the art market. The Venetian collector, art writer and

connoisseur Giovanni Maria Sasso was interested in acquiring and promoting early Italian

paintings and also planned to write biographies of the most important Venetian artists up

to his own time. By investigating these two complementary activities, I try to determine the

21

extent to which collectors and connoisseurs were aware of and adopted the attitudes

towards early Renaissance painting in the literary sources.

In Part Two, I explore a selection of writings on art produced in Florence from the

second half of the sixteenth century and to the end of the eighteenth. While for Venice, it

was possible to present the texts in a chronological sequence regardless of the genre, for

Florence, the difference between the trajectories of the genres was such that it proved

necessary to treat them separately. I begin therefore with an examination of Florentine

guidebooks, including Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Firenze of 1591 and the

subsequent edition by Giovanni Cinelli. This is followed by a contextual presentation of

Giorgio Vasari’s thought and especially his views on the the art of the past, as presented in

the first edition of his Lives. Next, I study the reception of Vasari’s Lives during the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, trying to identify the reasons why new editions of the

Lives were produced. I focus on the innovations which later editions contained, considering,

in particular whether these changes altered the original text and affected the contemporary

understanding of early Renaissance paintings. Throughout I make comparisons between

Florentine and Venetian attitudes to this art.

In the final chapter, I trace the development of connoisseurship and taste in the

writings of an important Florentine figure of the eighteenth century, the collector

Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1675-1742). Following in the footsteps of Baldinucci,

Gabburri was a prolific writer and publisher, as well as a collector and artistic adviser to

Duke Leopoldo de’ Medici. Moreover, his regular exchange of letters with artists, collectors

and connoisseurs, both inside and outside Italy, sheds light on the artistic preferences of his

day and on his contribution to the development of the taste for early Renaissance paintings

in eighteenth-century Florence.40 On the basis of my analysis of Gabburri’s Le vite,41 which

was based on Pellegrino Orlandi’s Abecedario pittorico, and its context, I attempt to position

him within the general lines of the historiography of art established by his predecessors.

40 For the corpus of letters associated with Gaburri, most of which were sent to him, see Giovanni Gaetano Bottari and Stefano Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura scritte da’ più celebri personaggi dei secoli XV, XVI, e XVII, 8 vols, Milan, 1822-1825, II, pp. 97-405. 41 For a transcription of the entire manuscript, together with online reproductions, see http://grandtour.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/Gabburri.consultazione.html; in quoting from Gabburri’s Le vite, I have maintained the pagination given in the transcription.

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PART ONE: VENETIAN ART WRITINGS

Introduction

Italian history writing of the sixteenth century developed from an encounter between, on

the one hand, the tradition of classical texts which touched on history and rhetoric,1 and, on

the other, a more recent tendency which departed from the conventional way of recording

historical events as a continuous narrative by ‘breaking down the content of history into

categories’.2 Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia and Paolo Giovio’s Historiarum sui

temporis libri XLV are two representative examples of the type of historical writing emerging

throughout Italy in this period, especially with regard to their universal approach and their

inclusion of non-historical information.3

This characteristic was also present in historical works from northern Italy,4 which

contained a large amount of material dealing with various aspects of city life, placed in

separate sections. While, for instance, in Venice, the chronicle tradition dates back to the

eleventh century,5 the first attempts to provide a humanist historiography of Venice arose

only later in the fifteenth century with the writings of Poggio Bracciolini and Flavio

Biondo, followed later by Marin Sanudo and Marc’Antonio Sabellico.6 These texts,

however, contained little or no material on the leading artists of the time. The first serious

attempt in the north of Italy to promote the artistic legacy of a city and to include an

account on the lives of the most famous artists in an historical work was Bernardino

Scardeone’s De civitate urbis Patavii, published in 1560.7 Written in Latin, Scardeone’s book

contained a chapter on the best-known painters and architects in Padua, mentioning their

most important works.

1 E.g., Cicero’s De oratore, Aristotle’s Poetics and Quintilian’s Institutiones oratoriae. 2 See P. F. Grendler, ‘Francesco Sansovino and Italian Popular History’, Studies in the Renaissance, 16, 1969, pp. 139-80, at p. 173. 3 Ibid., pp. 144-5 and 151. 4 See Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 365-6. 5 See E. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Early Renaissance, Chicago 1981, pp. 59-85 (‘Venice and Genoa’), at p. 62; and M. L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance, Princeton 1986. 6 Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, pp. 64-5. 7 See Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 365-6.

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CHAPTER 1

The Reception of Early Venetian Works of Art in the Writings of Francesco

Sansovino

Francesco Sansovino belongs in this category of writers from northern Italy. ‘Tuscan in

essence... Venetian by choice’,1 as he describes himself in the preface to his Venetia città

nobilissima, dedicated to Bianca de’ Medici, Sansovino was a prolific writer and publisher,

and the son of the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino. In his short autobiography,

written in the form of a letter dating from 15 December 1579 and addressed to Gian

Filippo Magnanini, the secretary of Cornelio Bentivoglio,2 Sansovino gives an account of

different stages of his life: his birth in Rome,3 his childhood in Florence, his education in

Venice, Padua and Bologna and his career as a man of letters in Venice;4 afterwards comes

a list of his writings, which he divides into three categories: original works, translations and

collections.5 We learn from the autobiography that he was born in Rome in 1521 during the

pontificate of Leo X, but due to the Sack of 1527, he was constrained to move to Florence

and, finally, to Venice, where he joined his father Jacopo.6 There he studied Latin and

rhetoric under Stefano Planzone and Giovita Rapicio, and learned Greek from Antonio

Francino da Monte Varchi.7 His father wanted Francesco to become a lawyer, and sent him,

against his will, to study law in Padua and Bologna. Of this period, Sansovino writes: ‘it was

spent in vain because I was not inclined to study law’.8 He did, however, frequent the

humanist circles of the Paduan Academy, where he met, among others, Benedetto Varchi,

Alessandro Piccolomini and Sperone Speroni, and was, at the same time, a member of the

1 Sansovino, Venetia, sig. A2r, ‘Toscano per natura...Veneto per elettione.’ 2 Giovanni Filippo Magnanini was a diplomat and writer employed by the Este court; see http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2010/892/pdf/Davis_Fontes45.pdf (C. Davis, ‘Individual and Polity in the Vita of Francesco Sansovino’, Fontes, 45, 2010, pp. 1-24, at p. 15). 3 Temanza also writes of Sansovino’s Roman origins in: Tommaso Temanza, Vite dei più celebri architetti e scultori veneziani che fiorirono nel secolo decimosesto (Venice 1778), ed. L. Grassi, Milan 1966, p. 211. 4 For the letter, see Sansovino, ‘Al. Mag. Sig. Gian Filippo Magnanini Secretario dell’Illustriss. Sig. Cornelio Bentivogli’, in his Secretario, Venice 1580, fols 219r-222r. 5 Ibid., fols 220r-221r. This list, however, is incomplete; for a more comprehensive account of Sansovino’s life and works, see E. Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, 6 vols, Venice 1824-1861, IV, pp. 31-91. 6 Sansovino, Secretario, fol. 221v: ‘mi trovai nel sacco memorando di quella Città, e vidi finalmente la Repubblica di Fiorenza risolversi nel Principato. Di quindi trasferitomi a Venezia, dove mio padre buo: mem: s’era salvato dal sacco.’ 7 For further information about Sansovino’s teachers, see Davis, ‘Individual and Polity’, p. 15. 8 See Sansovino, Secretario, fol. 219v: ‘consumai il tempo assai vanamente, non essendo io punto inchinato alle leggi’.

24

Florentine Academy, where he took part in discussions on the use of the vernacular.9 This

milieu seems to have had a direct influence on Sansovino’s response – as a writer, editor

and publisher – to the Venetian tradition of histories and chronicles, which, for the most

part, were written in Latin.10 Sansovino favoured instead vernacular publications: he

produced Italian translations of Latin and Greek texts by Justinian, Aristotle, Plutarch and

other ancient authors;11 he edited works by St Augustine, Leonardo Bruni and Francesco

Guicciardini, which he published at his own printing house;12 and he wrote various books

and treatises on Venetian history, rhetoric, oratory and epistolography.13

Sansovino’s writings on Venetian history belong to the type of writing characteristic

of this period in the Veneto, in that they derived from the long-standing tradition of laudes

civitatis and also reached out to a popular readership. His works were designed to inform

and instruct, and they were structured so that the readers could easily choose the section

which they wanted to consult.14 Two of them, Dialogo di tutte le cose notabili (1556) and Venetia

città nobilissima (1581), also included substantial accounts of Venetian art. An analysis of this

material will help to shed light on Sansovino’s view of the artistic past and the elements

which he sought to revive in order to assess the present. At the same time, it will allow us

to determine whether he anticipated new directions in the interpretation of the art of the

past and the way in which his approach influenced local writings on art that emerged

afterwards.

9 For Sansovino’s connections with the Accademia degli Infiammati in Padua and the Accademia degli Umidi in Florence, see E. Bonora, Ricerche su Francesco Sansovino imprenditore, libraio e letterato, Venice 1994, pp. 167-8 and 81-2. For the debates on the use of the vernacular in these two academic circles, see M. Maylender, Storia delle accademie d’Italia, 5 vols, Bologna 1926-1930, III, p. 269 and IV, p. 363. 10 E.g., Flavio Biondo, De origine et gestis Venetorum, Venice 1454, Marc’Antonio Sabellico, Rerum Venetarum (1487) and Pietro Marcello, De vitis principum Venetorum, Venice 1502; see Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, p. 62, and A. Prosperi’s preface to Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima, Bergamo 2002. 11 Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni, pp. 40-5, gives a list of 15 such works together with a short summary. 12 Ibid., pp. 16-68. 13 Ibid., pp. 68-84. 14 See Grendler, ‘Francesco Sansovino’, p. 143.

25

Dialogo di tutte le cose notabili che sono in Venezia (1556)

In 1556, Sansovino published the Dialogo di tutte le cose notabili che sono in Venezia.15 It was a

fictitious exchange between two gentlemen, a foreigner and a Venetian, containing brief but

informative accounts of the most illustrious inhabitants of the city and different aspects of

daily life, including customs, celebrations and historical facts, as well as a succint account of

the leading artists, with examples of their work. It also included important comparative

remarks on the past and the present, which will help us to situate Sansovino’s reception of

the art within a more general context. For instance, while introducing the foreigner to the

‘splendours’ of the past, the Venetian gentleman points out that:

Among our antiquities, there are many things which are unknown to people, but which

please me greatly; for I examine those times with my own judgement and, on this basis, I

look at the present, seeing whether I appreciate it more or not.16

In this passage, Sansovino acknowledges that a good understanding of the past, together

with its lesser known aspects, helps to assess the present. There then follows a discussion

of some of the most important early Venetian artists and their works, starting with Gentile

and Giovanni Bellini. Sansovino considered them to be ‘highly esteemed artists in their

day…but, in their excessive diligence, they failed by making the figures appear without

softness or great relief’.17 In spite of this critical attitude towards the two artists, Sansovino

makes positive remarks about their works. He mentions Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe

altarpiece in San Giobbe and the San Zaccaria altarpiece in San Zaccaria and a number of

‘very beautiful and devout’ paintings of the Madonna.18 He dwells on one piece in

particular, a private commission for Simon Zeno, which represented ‘a [Madonna] in

majesty in a very small painting. She was reading the office, with her arms crossed over her

15 The work was published under the pseudonym of Anselmo Guisconi but is thought to be by Sansovino; see Bonora, Ricerche, pp. 186-7. 16 Sansovino, Dialogo di tutte le cose notabili che sono in Venezia, Venice 1563, sig. BIVv: ‘Nelle nostre antichità son molte cose incognite alle persone, le quali mi dilettano grandemente: perciò che col pensiero misuro quei tempi e con quella misura, veggio i presenti e quanto più mi piacciono o no.’ 17 Sansovino, Dialogo, sig. BVIr: ‘Costoro ne lor tempi furono stimati assai... Ma peccavano più tosto nella troppo diligenza, perche le figure nella lor qualità venivano a esser non morbide, e di non molto rilievo.’ 18 Ibid.: ‘si trovano diverse opere, come in S. Iob, in San Zaccaria…alcune nostre donne molto belle e devote.’

26

chest with such modesty and grace that I have never seen represented better.’19 Giovanni

and Gentile Bellini (who had been treated with respect in the first edition of Vasari’s Vite)20

are the earliest artists mentioned in Tutte le cose notabili; others include Giorgione, Paris

Bordone, Bonifacio Veronese, Pordenone, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese21 and Andrea

Schiavone.22 His comments on their works, with the exception of Titian, who is discussed

in detail,23 are rather general, brief and not always accompanied by examples. Although less

substantial, Tutte le cose notabili can be viewed as a preparation for Sansovino’s more

comprehensive entreprise of 1581, Venetia città nobilissima: just as the earlier dialogue

transmits a message about the importance of Venetian culture (it was also a commercial

product intended for the instruction of visitors), so, too, the later work extols the virtues of

the Venetians and calls attention to the great significance of the city’s public monuments

and the works of art which they contain.

Venetia città nobilissima (1581)

Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima, published in 1581, was the earliest substantial

publication after Vasari’s Lives (1550 and 1568) to contain accounts of works of art

displayed both publicly and privately in Venice. In a letter of 22 June 1573, Sansovino

informed Alvise Michiel about his plan to write a history of Venice in the vernacular, as

would ‘a noble foreigner’, rather than in Latin, as would ‘a noble Venetian’, on the grounds

that it would be ‘more credible’.24 He also expressed his concern about obtaining a licence

19 Ibid., sig. BVIr: ‘Ella è in un picciolo Quadretto e in maestà. Sia in atto di legger l’officio con le mani incrociate al petto con tanta modestia, con tanta venustà, ch’io non ho visto mai meglio.’ On Zeno, an important collector, see I. Favaretto, Arte antica e cultura antiquaria nelle collezioni venete al tempo della Serenissima, Rome 1990, p. 156. 20 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 431-9. 21 The reference to Veronese is worth noting, given how recently he had arrived in Venice (c. 1555-1556). On Veronese’s activity in Venice, see T. Pignatti, ‘Cittadino di Venezia’, in Veronese, 2 vols, Venice 1976, I, pp. 26-49. 22 Sansovino, at least implicitly, seems to distinguish between the artists of the late 15th century (the Bellini) and those from Giorgione onwards, in this respect following Vasari. 23 One of Titian’s closest friends was Venice’s leading sculptor Jacopo Sansovino; as his son, Francesco was also acquainted with Titian; see C. Hope, ‘Vida y época de Tiziano’, in Tiziano, ed. M. Falomir, Madrid 2003, pp. 17-31. 24 The letter is published in Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni, IV, pp. 89-90: ‘nè per questo do noja ad alcuno perchè se’l Nobile Vinetiano scrive l’Historia latina, il Nobile forestiero scriverà la vulgare, la qual forse sarà più creduta, che la latina.’

27

from the Council of Ten. There were two conditions which had to be fulfilled in order to

receive approval for a publication on the history of Venice: either one had to be the official

historian of the city or a member of the patriciate; but Sansovino was neither.25 He

therefore felt that he had to justify the importance of the book from a political perspective

and give guarantees that it would be of great interest to readers.

Sansovino’s book perpetuated a well-established tradition of celebrating the city of

Venice and its famous citizens, many of them artists whose works were displayed publicly.

At the beginning, after the dedication to the Venetian-born Bianca Cappello, Grand

Duchess of Tuscany, also known as Bianca de’ Medici, Sansovino gives a complete list of

authors whose works he constantly cites, including, among others, local writers such as

Leandro Alberti (Bolognese), Donato Giannotti (Florentine), Marc’Antonio Michiel,

Marc’Antonio Sabellico, Marin Sanudo and Bernardo Scardeone (Paduan). The writings of

these authors – whether chronicles, registers, orations or journals – highlighted the most

significant aspects of particular cities in Italy, especially Venice and towns in the Veneto.26

Venezia città nobilissima is structured in thirteen books, nine of which include

information about the most important churches, confraternities and palaces in the city.

Sansovino’s method of presenting the sites is to provide a short history of the monument,

together with comments, usually brief but sometimes quite extensive, on the most

significant works of art, as well as inscriptions (to which he paid great attention), found

there. It is very likely that he had seen most of the paintings he recorded, so his lengthier

remarks were meant to single out paintings he particularly admired.

Works of Art in Churches

Sansovino devoted the first six books of Venetia città nobilissima to churches, which he

grouped geographically within their sestieri. Here a number of accounts refer to early works

25 See Bonora, ‘Storiografia locale’, in Ricerche, pp. 164-7. 26 See Sansovino, Venetia, p. [vii] (‘Autori citati nel presente volume’); see also Bonora, ‘Storiografia locale’, pp. 163-94.

28

of art which Sansovino considered worthy of note. In analysing these references, I shall

begin by discussing the early artists and their works in chronological order.27

Sansovino’s remarks on Trecento and some early Quattrocento artists are not very

detailed. Of the frescoes in the chapel of the Volto Santo in Santa Maria de’ Servi, for

instance, he records what the inscription said: that they were executed by Nicoletto

Semitecolo in 1370 (fig. 1), without adding any further comments.28 With the paintings of

Francesco de Franceschi, Donato Veneziano and the Vivarini, he simply names the subject,

gives the precise location and, occasionally, the date of execution, which he often takes

from the inscription.29 None of Sansovino’s notes on these artists is found in Vasari’s Lives,

which shows that he was not relying on it as a source for this material.

At times, he reveals more about a painting or an artist, making appreciative remarks;

but these fuller passages occur in connection with works by later artists. Such is the case of

Marco Basaiti: alongside an altarpiece of St Catherine by Jacopo Tintoretto, Sansovino

records a painting of St Jerome as a penitent by Basaiti (fig. 2), whom he refers to as ‘a

master of some celebrity in his day’.30 The other two paintings by Basaiti which he mentions

are The Agony in the Garden and The Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (fig. 3). Of the latter he writes:

‘Marco Basaiti, a master of great reputation painted the main altarpiece with the conversion

of the apostles in 1510. There one can see beautiful and charming landscapes, lively colours

and very graceful figures.’31 Sansovino also informs us that Benedetto Diana’s altarpiece of

St John the Baptist in the chapel of Girolamo Bragadino in San Francesco della Vigna was

very highly praised by painters of the time for its ‘singular beauty’.32 He does not, however,

tell us why this painting was considered beautiful.33 Although relatively brief and not very

27 I have chosen to discuss his references to earlier artists chronologically since this may help to establish what his preferences were. In the first edition of his Venetia, Sansovino mentioned 81 works of art by 23 artists before Giorgione. 28 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 59r: ‘Et fu dipinta la Historia del Volto Santo, nella fraterna, da Nicoletto Semitecolo l’anno 1370.’ For further details, see R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Trecento, Venice 1964, p. 123. Only the vault frescoes have survived. 29 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 46r: ‘Vi dipinse anco la tavola di S. Hieronimo e S. Sebastiano e S. Luigi posta alle spalle del coro, Francesco Franceschi l’anno 1448.’ Most of the works were signed and dated. 30 Ibid., fol. 5r: ‘una palla di mano di Jacomo Tintoretto, dove Santa Caterina disputa con gli Idolatri, e un San Hieronimo dipinto da Marco Basaiti, maestro assai celebre del suo tempo’. 31 Ibid., fol. 79v: ‘dove si veggono bellissimi e vaghissimi paesi, colori vivissimi, e figure con molta gratia’. 32 Ibid., fol. 16v: ‘La cappella di Hieronimo Bragadino è notabile per la famosa palla di San Giovanni Battista dipinta da Benedetto Diana, la quale è tenuta in gran pregio da i Pittori moderni ed è cosa di bellezza singolare.’ 33 Before Sansovino’s account, the second edition of Vasari’s Lives contained a discussion – in fact, more accurate – of the subject of Diana’s altarpiece, which represented St John between two other saints, each of

29

specific, Sansovino’s accounts of works by these two artists nevertheless provide a

sympathetic evaluation.

He not only discussed and praised works of art by Italian masters, but also

celebrated the German painter Albrecht Dürer. He mentioned an altarpiece by him of Our

Lady, ‘of singular beauty for design, diligence and colour’ in the church of San Bartolomeo

(fig. 4).34 It is one of the rare occasions where Sansovino explains why a painting was

worthy of admiration.

Even though he showed appreciation for early Renaissance art works, his

observations do not seem to reveal a set of aesthetic criteria with a wider application.

Several questions remain unanswered, such as what he actually meant by ‘beautiful’; on

what basis he ranked painters and what qualified their works as significant and noteworthy;

and, finally, whether his views reflected what art-lovers at the time were looking for in a

painting. When, for instance, he discusses Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece (fig. 5),

he tells us that it was composed of the figure of the Virgin Mary, placed in the middle, with

St Sebastian to the right and St Job to the left and that it was very much appreciated for its

excellence by the good masters of Bellini’s time, as well as by those in Sansovino’s day.35

Compared to later accounts of the same painting, however, he did not provide a detailed

description of the subject.36 It remains significant, nonetheless, that Sansovino emphasized

that the painting continued to be highly regarded by artists of a later generation.

them holding a book; see Vasari/Milanesi, Le vite, III, p. 650: ‘Sono di sua mano in Vinezia in S. Francesco

della Vigna, dove all’altare di San Giovanni fece esso Santo ritto in mezzo a due altri Santi che hanno in mano ciascuno un libro’, and n. 4. Vasari’s modern editor informs us that the painting has been destroyed, without giving any evidence or dates. There is no reference to it in the second edition of Sansovino’s book, or in later Venetian writings on art. While discussing the Bragadin chapel, Marco Boschini indicated the existence of three paintings, none of which, however, was by Benedetto Diana. There was an altarpiece by Giuseppe Porta, also known as Salviati, with the figures of St Jerome, St Catherine, St John the Baptist and St James and, to the sides, a Feast in the House of Simon by Andrea Vicentino and a painting of Christ with Our Lady, St Mark, St John the Baptist and St Jerome by Jacopo Palma il Giovane. This new display of paintings within the chapel may indeed suggest that Diana’s painting had been replaced by one of these variants; see Marco Boschini, Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana, Venice 1674, (Castello), pp. 43-4, on the altarpiece. 34 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 48v: ‘una palla di Nostra Donna, di mano d’Alberto Duro, di bellezza singolare, per disegno, per diligenza e per colorito’. The painting is now in the National Gallery of Prague; see B. Aikema and B. L. Brown, eds, Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian, ed. New York 2000, pp. 59 and 306-9. 35 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 57r: ‘e si come allora fu stimata molto da i buoni maestri, così al presente per la sua molta eccellenza è tenuta in gran prezzo’. 36 Boschini, e.g., noted that the painting contained other figures besides the ones mentioned by Sansovino such as the Christ child, St Dominic, St Francis, St Louis, St John the Baptist and ‘three angels singing in sweet harmony’; see Marco Boschini, Le ricche minere (Canareggio), p. 64: ‘Continua la famosa Tavola di Giovanni Bellino, con Maria, il Bambino, san Giobbe, san Sebastiano, san Domenico, san Francesco, san Luigi, san Giovanni Battista, e tre Angeli, che suonano con soave armonia.’

30

When writing about the Baptism of Christ in the church of San Giovanni de’ Cavalieri

in Castello (fig. 6), Sansovino provides no details beyond the subject of the painting.37

Stringa, however, in the second edition, mentions another work by Giovanni Bellini in the

same church, describing the subject as The Supper at Emmaus38 – a problematic identification

since there are only two known paintings by Giovanni Bellini of the Supper at Emmaus,

neither of which was in the church of San Giovanni de’ Cavalieri. Vasari recorded one in

the collection of Giorgio Cornaro, preserved today in an engraving by Pietro Monaco in the

British Museum (fig. 7).39 Sansovino, in the original edition of his book, briefly mentions

the other, which he calls ‘the Supper of Christ’ in San Salvatore (fig. 8);40 but Stringa, in the

second edition of Sansovino’s work, describes this painting as the Feast in the House of

Simon.41 Carlo Ridolfi, however, correctly identified the subject as the Supper at Emmaus,42

after which, all sources referred to it in this way.43

An exception to Sansovino’s usual practice of providing quite skimpy accounts of

paintings is his description of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Christians on Mount Ararat by

Vittore Carpaccio in the church of Sant’Antonio (fig. 9). He says that Carpaccio was one of

37 Francesco Sansovino, Venetia, ed. Giovanni Stringa, Venice 1604, fol. 137r: ‘Vi dipinse Giovanni Bellino la pala dell’altar maggiore, che rappresenta il battesimo di Christo, fatto da San Giovanni.’ Giustinano Martinioni also mentions this painting in the third edition; see Francesco Sansovino, Venetia, ed. Giustiniano Martinioni, Venice 1663, p. 47: ‘nell’Altar Maggiore il Signor Nostro al Giordano’; see also C. Gamba, Giovanni Bellini, Paris 1937, pp. 161-2. 38 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 137r: ‘a man manca vi è un quadro grande di notabile bellezza ove si vede sedere a mensa Christo, e gli Apostoli che andavano in Emaus, da i quali fu invitato a mangiare, come narra S. Giovanni.’ 39 See Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, p. 164: ‘in casa messer Giorgio Cornaro è un quadro similmente bellissimo, dentro Cristo, Cleofas e Luca’. 40 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 47v: ‘la cena di Christo di Gian Bellino’, which does not clearly indicate that the subject is the Supper at Emmaus. The picture is still in the church of San Salvatore; see Pignatti, L’opera completa di Giovanni Bellini, Milan 1969, p. 101. 41 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 93v: ‘Di pittura si vede nella cappella del Sacramento un bel quadro, in cui

fù già dipinto da Gian Bellino quando Christo Signor nostro nella casa del Fariseo, fu da Santa Maria Maddalena unto, e lavato i piedi; e fù una delle cose eccellenti, ch’egli operasse giamai.’ I have not been able to identify any painting by Bellini which corresponds to this description, nor have I found any textual evidence of a similar reference. 42 Carlo Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell’arte (Venice 1648), ed. D. von Hadeln, 2 vols, Berlin 1914-1924, I, p. 71:

‘Nella Cappella del Sacramento in San Salvadore è Christo alla mensa con Luca, e Cleofa, e seco vede un Gentilhuomo Venetiano, e un mendico chiede l’elemosina molto naturale: ma sopra tutto, e singolare l’effigie del Signore spirante affetti divini.’ For further details, see Gamba, Bellini, pp. 163-6, and R. Goffen, Giovanni Bellini, New Haven and London 1989, pp. 278-9. 43 See, e.g., Boschini, Le ricche minere (San Marco), p. 104: ‘Nella Capella del Santissimo, vi è Christo in Emaus, di Giovanni Bellino’; Giovanni Albrizzi, Forestiere illuminato, Venice 1740, p. 69: ‘si vede un Quadro di Giovanni Bellino, rappresentante Gesucristo in Emmaus’; and Antonio Maria Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana, Venice 1771, p. 75: ‘Niuna pittura tuttavia di Giovanni dimostra più il vero carattere Giorgionesco, il colore, e la forza, quanto il bel quadro che sta in S. Salvatore nella cappella del Sacramento. Si vede in esso Cristo in Emmaus con i discepoli, ed un ritratto.’

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the ‘noblest painters of his own time’ and acknowledges the admiration which intendenti

showed for the painting,44 one of the few occasions where he states that an early picture

was appreciated by art-lovers. Yet such comments provide little indication of what people

looked for in a painting.

An explanation for Sansovino’s customary brevity when mentioning paintings

perhaps lies in the nature of the book. It was meant to celebrate the Venetian people by

giving a short history of the city’s monuments and a record of the inscriptions and art

works which they contained. The presentation of material in Venetia città nobilissima and the

type of information provided by Sansovino, which was historical rather than artistic,

suggest that it was not used by most readers as a guidebook. Instead, his accounts of

paintings were intended to signal the presence of various works of art in Venice and,

occasionally, to point out the most noteworthy ones. He usually gave the name of the

painter and, where possible, the year in which each work was executed. What he wrote

seems to be based mostly on direct observation; and his attributions were facilitated by the

fact that the works of art were sometimes signed and dated, though he did not invariably

indicate this.45

Sansovino does not appear to have followed a set procedure as he wandered around

the churches of Venice, and his reasons for choosing to comment on particular art works

are not obvious. These references, as I have suggested, were merely intended to raise

awareness among his readership of certain notable items, including a number of paintings

from the early Renaissance which were still appreciated. He did display some interest,

although not always expressly stated, in promoting the art of the past, as well as that of the

present: for instance, he describes the private collection of paintings in the Palazzo Pesaro

as ‘excellent paintings both ancient and modern’.46

In investigating Sansovino’s treatment of written sources such as Vasari’s Lives in

his accounts of works of art from before 1550, we need to consider whether he used a

44 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 8r: ‘il terzo ricchissimo di colonne, di marmi e di molto oro, contiene con delicatissima e eccellente pittura, la historia di dieci mila martiri fatta da Vittorio Scarpaccia Pittore nobilissimo del suo tempo: e molto stimata dagli intendenti’; see also G. Nepi Scirè, Carpaccio. Pittore di storie, Venice 2004, p. 27. 45 E.g., Antonio Vivarini’s altarpiece of St Andrew; see Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 10r: ‘l’altare di Santo Andrea fu dipinto da Antonio’. 46 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 376: ‘possedono una copiosa raccolta di Eccellenti Pitture, così antiche, come moderne’. Although he praises both ancient and modern works of art, Sansovino may be drawing attention to the owners rather than to the paintings.

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rigorous selection procedure or simply took an arbitrary approach. To answer this question,

we have to keep in mind the difference between Vasari’s biographies and Sansovino’s book.

Vasari grouped works of art under biographies of artists, while Sansovino organized his

material by churches. The information about Venetian paintings which Sansovino could

have found in the Lives was often incomplete since Vasari did not normally provide an

extensive biography of those artists whom he considered to be of minor importance or

about whom he had managed to acquire only limited information. So, for instance, his

notes on the works of Marco Basaiti, Cima da Conegliano and Benedetto Diana in the life

of Vittore Carpaccio were very brief.47 At other times, he gave only the names of artists

who worked in Venice such as Vincenzo Catena and Vittore Bellino, without providing

further details. Many paintings mentioned by Vasari were also listed by Sansovino. There

were occasions, however, when Sansovino referred to works not mentioned by Vasari such

as two paintings by Marco Basaiti and Vittore Carpaccio,48 while Vasari mentioned some

paintings not included by Sansovino in his book such as Bartolomeo Vivarini’s altarpiece in

the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo.49

47 Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 627-47. 48 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 5r: ‘un San Hieronimo dipinto, da Marco Basaiti, maestro assai celebre del suo tempo’, and fol. 54r: ‘Dall’altro lato di quà, è situata Santa Fosca anco ella antica, dove dipinse una palla Vittorio Scarpaccia Maestro chiarissimo nell’età sua.’ 49 See, e.g., Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 647-8: ‘Bartolomeo Vivarino da Murano si portò anch’egli molto

bene nell’opera che fece, come si può vedere, oltre a molte altre, nella tavola che fece all’altare di San Luigi

nella la chiesa di San Giovanni e Polo; nella quale dipinse il detto San Luigi a sedere, col piviale in dosso, San

Gregorio, San Bastiano, e San Domenico; e dall’altro lato, San Niccolò, San Girolamo, e San Rocco: e sopra

questi, altri Santi infino a mezzo.’ In his article on the authorship of the Lives, Charles Hope has shown that

the biographies of artists from Parts 1 and 2 of the 1568 edition were printed in 1564, while those from Part 3

started to come to light from 1565 onwards. Most of the information on Venetian art which was added to the

1568 edition came from Cosimo Bartoli, who was in Venice in 1563; see C. Hope, ‘Le Vite vasariane: un

esempio di autore multiplo’, in L’autore multiplo, ed. A. Santoni, Pisa 2005, pp. 59-74, at pp. 68-74. Given,

therefore, that the passage was printed before Vasari’s trip to Venice in 1566, it must have been written by

Bartoli, not Vasari. For another discussion of the issue of authorship in Vasari’s Le vite, see Thomas

Frangenberg, ‘Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s Lives (1550)’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

Institutes, 65, 2002, pp. 244-58.

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Works of Art in the Scuole

After describing the most significant Venetian churches and their paintings, Sansovino

devoted a section of his book to the nine scuole grandi, recording the art works contained in

three of them: Santa Maria della Carità, San Giovanni Evangelista and San Marco.50 Among

the earlier paintings in the Scuola della Carità, he briefly mentions a representation of the

apostles by Jacobello del Fiore and an image of the Madonna by Antonio Vivarini, without,

however, providing any further assessment of these paintings.51 He gives a somewhat more

informative account of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, where there were paintings

with scenes from the Old and New Testament by Jacopo Bellini and others by Benedetto

Diana, Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, Lazaro Sebastiani and Gentile Bellini. Even

though Sansovino does not identify the subjects of most of the paintings to which he

refers, he clearly shows an interest in a number of artists, including Benedetto Diana and

Giovanni Bellini, whom he regards as ‘the most praiseworthy and famous masters’, and

Vittore Carpaccio, ‘a man of uncommon excellence’.52 In his account of the Scuola di San

Marco, the first work he mentions is the Agony in the Garden by Giorgio Schiavone, a pupil

of Squarcione.53 Next comes the scenes from the life of St Mark by Jacopo Tintoretto,

Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti and Vittore Belliniano.54 Finally, Sansovino lists Noah’s

Ark by Bartolomeo Montagna, which was begun but never completed due to a fire.55

In mentioning works of art in the scuole, Sansovino does not necessarily follow the

same pattern which he employed when writing about churches. His accounts are even more

abbreviated, and many of the subjects are not identified at all. In attempting to explain this

50 Several other works of art were added in the following editions. 51 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 99v: ‘vi sono gli Apostoli fatti a guazzo maggiori del naturale, da Iacomello dal Fiore, che visse l’anno 1418. Et nell’Albergo la nostra Donna dipinta anco essa a guazzo, fu opera di Antonio Vivarino da Murano.’ 52 Ibid., fols 100v-101r: ‘conciosia che la prima tela a man destra fu di Benedetto Diana. La seconda di Gian Bellino amendue lodatissimi e famosi maestri. La terza di Giovanni de Mansueti, è la tela alla sinistra dell’altare di Vittorio Scarpaccia huomo di rara eccellenza. L’altra all’incontro fu di Giovanni Mariscalco. Et oltre all’altare, la prima tela dalla sinistra, fu dipinta da Lazaro Sebastiani. La seconda da Gentil Bellino, e la terza da Giovanni de Mansueti. La palla dell’altare fu opera di Jacomo Bellino.’ 53 Ibid., fol. 102r : ‘nell’entrar della Scuola il Christo fatto a guazzo nello horto, fu opera di Giorgio Schiavone allievo dello Squarcione’. 54 Ibid.: ‘i quadri nella sala co i miracoli del Santo, di Iacomo Tintoretto e Gentil Bellino vi dipinse il quadro, nel quale San Marco predica a gli infedeli posto in faccia dell’albergo, e Giovanni de Mansueti, il quadro dove San Marco guarisce un calzolaio... Il martirio di San Marco fu di Vittorio Bellino.’ 55 Ibid.: ‘Vi fu anco cominciata l’arca di Noè da Bartolomeo Montagna...che non fu finita da lui per l’incendio’;

see P. Paoletti, ‘La Scuola Grande di San Marco’, Venice 1939, pp. 132-3.

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change, it is worth noting that a large number of paintings in the scuole were not included in

Vasari’s Lives.56 Therefore, Sansovino must have based his accounts on his own direct

observation of the paintings (many of which were signed and dated) or on other written

accounts.57 It may be that he chose to provide so little information about the paintings in

the scuole because he was more interested in documenting them historically, especially those

which were no longer extant, such as Montagna’s Noah’s Ark and, as we shall see, some of

the paintings in the Palazzo Ducale; and for this purpose, a simple mention of the work

would have been sufficient.

The Palazzo Ducale

In the section on the Palazzo Ducale, Sansovino offered detailed and precise information

about the works of art situated in each of the rooms. It is important to note that he

carefully recreated in words the decoration and the display of the paintings before they

were damaged by fire. So, he tells us that the room which preceded the Sala

dell’Anticollegio had a new ceiling, made of gold. It was admirable for its intaglios and had

exquisite paintings at the sides, doors of marble and columns crafted with great skill: ‘All

these were destroyed in the fire of 1574.’58 They were replaced with paintings by Tintoretto

and Veronese in the Sala dell’Anticollegio itself. Sansovino enumerated these paintings in

the order in which they were displayed and discussed various aspects, including their 56 Only two paintings in the scuole are recorded by Vasari: Giovanni Mansueti’s St Mark healing St Aniano in the Scuola di San Marco and Jacopo Bellini’s scenes from the Life and Passion of Christ in Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 648 and 152-3 respectively. 57 E.g., Sansovino’s descriptions of works of art by Jacobello del Fiore and Antonio Vivarini in the Scuola della Carità are similar to the ones found in Marc’Antonio Michiel’s manuscript; see Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 99v: ‘vi sono gli Apostoli fatti a guazzo maggiori del natural, da Iacomello dal Fiore che visse l’an 1418. Et nell’Albergo la nostra Donna dipinta anco essa a guazzo, fu opera di Antonio Vivarino da Murano’; see also Marc’Antonio Michiel, Notizie d’opere del disegno, ed. T. Frimmel, Vienna 1888, p. 116: ‘La nostra donna in testa dell’albergo, cun el puttino in brazzo, cun li altri dui santi un per lato à guazzo, in tavola, et magior del natural, furono de man de Antonio da Muran. Nel ditto albergo a man mancha li apostoli pur in tavola a guazzo, mazor del natural, furon de man de Jacomello dal Fior l’anno 1418. 13. Febbrajo.’ The idea that Sansovino used Michiel was proposed in D. von Hadeln, ‘Sansovinos Venetia als Quelle für die Geschichte der venezianischen Malerei’, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 31, 1910, pp. 149-58, at pp. 152-8; see also Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 268. 58 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 122r: ‘Il Salone avanti all’Anticollegio haveva il soffitto nuovo, carico d’oro e ammirabile per i suoi intagli, con pitture esquisite fatte a i primi di queste parti, e le porte di marmo pari colonnate e figurate con gran maestria, le quali tutte cose furono consummate dal fuoco l’anno 1574.’

35

subject and location within the room. Earlier works were recorded in the Sala del Gran

Consiglio; among the most noteworthy artists were Luigi Vivarini, Giovanni Bellini,

Pisanello, Gentile da Fabriano and Gentile Bellini.59 Sansovino drew particular attention to

twenty-two paintings in the Sala del Gran Consiglio representing scenes from the life of

Pope Alexander III, some of which were by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. For instance, he

carefully described the tenth painting by Gentile Bellini, which showed the pope and the

Great Chancellor engaged in the act of signing a peace treaty:

And in this painting with beautiful figures, excellent draughtsmanship and very charming

and fine colouring, with very well rendered and conceived perspectives by the painter, three

things are to be noted. First, the gowns of the ambassadors of that time, who used to wear

the collar and the silver trumpets in front of the emperor... Second, a common error, that

the pope transferred the authority to seal in lead to our doge, which he had since ancient

times, as one will see clearly more than in the present. Third, the way in which the Great

Chancellor was dressed, at the time the painting was made by Giovanni Bellini. He was

wearing a long crimson gown and sleeves flowing at the back like caftans, and a hat on his

head, which displayed greatness and majesty and was very solemn and beautiful to see. 60

Similarly, describing the thirteenth painting in the room, which was by Giovanni

Bellini, Sansovino wrote that it ‘depicted with diligence the naval battle between the doge

and Emperor Otto, in which one perceives the great patience of the painter. He managed

to render the intertwining of the galleys, the fury of the combatants and the victory

achieved. All this was shown with marvellous excellence...’61

59 Ibid., fol. 123v: ‘Furono rifatti molti quadri vecchi perche vivendo allora i Vivarini, i Bellini, e diversi altri Pittori di nome, piacque al Senato di servirsi dell’opera loro.’ 60 Ibid., fol. 127v: ‘Et in questo quadro ripieno di belle figure, con molto disegno, e con coloriti grandemente vaghi e fini, con prospettive molto ben tirate et intese dal Pittore, si notavano tre cose. L’una lo habito degli ambasciatori di quel tempo, i quali portavano il bavaro e le trombe d’argento quando andavano all’Imperatore, il quale uso durò per lunghissimo tempo... L’altra, l’error commune, ch’il Papa desse l’autorità al Principe nostro, di sigillare in piombo: havendola essi ab antiquo, come si vedrà chiaramente più oltre nel presente. La terza, il modo col quale andava vestito il Cancellier Grande, nel tempo che fu dipinto il quadro da Gian Bellino. Percioche con habito lungo, rosato, e con le maniche pendenti come i caffettani dietro alle spalle, e con berretta a tagliere in capo, dimostrava grandezza e maestà, cosa molto grave e bella a vedere.’ 61 Ibid., fol. 128v: ‘Nel tredecimo era diligentemente essemplata la battaglia navale del Principe con Othone, nella qual si scorgeva la gran patientia di quell Pittore nel conflitto. Percioche esprimendo l’intrecciamento delle galee, la furia de combattenti e la vittoria ottenuta, mostrava altrui quell fatto con maravigliosa eccellenza.’

36

The elaborate descriptions of these art works show that Sansovino had a sharp

critical sense and a good grasp of detail. He commented on multiple aspects of the

paintings in order to recreate them and their context, so that the readers of his book could

get an accurate idea of how they were displayed and what they looked like. He lamented

that all these works were destroyed in a second fire of 1577, an event which ‘brought great

displeasure to everyone, because of the loss of works by such excellent artists and of the

memories of such excellent historical figures’.62 This, too, indicates that the idea of

recording lost works was uppermost in his mind.

The Second Edition of Venetia città nobilissima (1604) by Giovanni Stringa

Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima was re-edited twice: in 1604 and 1663. The second

edition brought out by Giovanni Stringa, a canon at San Marco and expert on liturgical

ceremony,63 differs from the original in having a clearer structure and in including works of

art from the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento which Sansovino had failed to record.64 It

also includes a different dedication, which was addressed to the archbishop of Salzburg,

Wolfgang Theodoric.65 In the preface, Stringa states that his initiative to provide a new

edition of Sansovino’s book was due to its popularity and the requests for further copies on

the part of both local and foreign readers.66 A new edition, however, could only be

62 Ibid., fol.132v: ‘le quali tutte cose consummate dal fuoco del 1577 apportarono gran dispiacere a tutto l’universale, per la perdita delle fatture di tanti valentihuomini, e delle memorie di tanti personaggi eccellenti’. 63 See J. Bettley, ‘The Office of Holy Week at St Mark’s, Venice, in the Late 16th Century, and the Musical Contributions of Giovanni Croce’, Early Music, 22, 1994, pp. 45-62, at p. 45. 64 I have identified a total of 9 additional art works from the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento which were included in the second edition. These were by artists such as Lazzaro Sebastiani (one in Corpo di Christo and one in San Silvestro; Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 148v and fol. 153v), Giovanni Bellini (one in San Felice and one in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, ibid., fols 140v and 157v), Cima da Conegliano (one in Madonna dell’Orto and one in Santa Maria de’ Crocicchieri, ibid., fol. 146r and fol. 147v), Girolamo Santa Croce (one in San Silvestro, ibid., fol. 153r), Vincenzo Catena (one in Santa Maria Mater Domini, ibid., fol. 164v) and Antonello da Messina (one in San Cassiano, ibid., fol. 165r). 65 See frontispiece of the second edition of Sansovino’s Venetia, and Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni, IV, p. 72. 66 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, (‘Stringa ai lettori’), p. [v]: ‘è stata senza dubbio cosi grata all’universale, che quasi non rimase alcuno cosi terrier, come forestiero, che non ne pigliasse una, e quella avidamente non leggesse; di modo che essendo state in brevissimo tempo tutte le copie, all’hora stampate, date via e egli che stava in procinto di farne di nuovo stampare un’altra mano’.

37

published twenty years after the previous one, according to the initial privileges given by the

Venetian government, as Stringa goes on to explain.67

In discussing Stringa’s new ‘embellished and adorned edition’,68 I shall try to

determine whether the works of art which he added had been deliberately omitted by

Sansovino, as part of a more or less rigorous process of selection, or whether he was simply

less diligent than Stringa. On the face of it, it is surprising that Sansovino had not included

a number of works by artists such as Giovanni Bellini or Antonello da Messina which he

could either have seen in Venetian churches or read about in Vasari’s Lives.69

The most important innovation in the second edition, as announced by Stringa,

consisted in an enlarged account of the basilica of San Marco, together with the addition of

various works of art and changes to the ordering of the churches within each sestiere.70 It is

not surprising that he decided to pay more attention to the most significant church in

Venice. The augmented account did not, however, focus mainly on the mosaics, but instead

provided a detailed history of the basilica’s construction. Stringa preserved all the references

to mosaics from the original edition, expanding these with further descriptions of individual

scenes. Even more importantly, for our purposes, his updates to Sansovino’s 1581 edition

included one or two additional paintings by each of the following artists: Lazaro Sebastiani,

Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, Vincenzo Catena, Antonello da Messina and

Girolamo Santa Croce. Although Stringa’s descriptions of these works do not normally

reveal much in terms of appreciation or evaluation, there are four exceptions. First, in

referring to Lazaro Sebastiani and his depiction of St Veneranda in Corpo di Christo, he

describes the artist as ‘an excellent painter for his time’.71 Second, he says that Vincenzo

Catena’s altarpiece of St Christina (fig. 10) was regarded as ‘most noble’ and that Catena

was ‘a painter much esteemed in his time’.72 Finally, Stringa discussed two paintings by

Cima da Conegliano. One, representing St John the Baptist with Sts Peter, Mark, Jerome and Paul

67 Ibid.: ‘che non prima c’hora per il privilegio di 20 anni, c’haveva questa sua opera, s’habbia potuto conforme al desiderio di voi gentilissimi lettori ristampare.’ 68 Ibid.: ‘l’abellimento e adornamento dell’aggiunta delle cose nuove’. 69 E.g., Antonello’s commission for the church of San Cassano, which Stringa added in the 1604 edition, also appears in Vasari; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), II, p. 570: ‘gli fu fatta allogazione di una tavola che andava in San Cassano, parrocchia di quella città: la qual tavola fu da Antonello con ogni suo sapere, e senza risparmio di tempo, lavorata’. 70 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia (‘Stringa ai lettori’), p. [v]: ‘non solamente in molti luoghi riordinata, e delle predette cose, chel’hanno più d’un terzo accresciuta, ampliata...ma ancora di una minutissima descrittione della Chiesa Ducale di San Marco, fatta da me ultimamente con non poca mia fatica, ornata e abbellita’. 71 Ibid., fol. 148v: ‘eccellente Pittore a’ suoi tempi’. 72 Ibid., fol. 164v: ‘la cui pala è nobilissima, e la dipinse Vincenzo C. Pittore molto stimato a’ suoi tempi’.

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(fig. 11) and located in Madonna dell’Orto, had been briefly mentioned by Sansovino;73 but

Stringa added a comment on the manner in which Cima depicted the ‘very noble’ landscape

in the background.74 The other work was ‘a most noble’ rendering of the Virgin Annunciate

in the main chapel of Santa Maria de’ Crocicchieri.75 These observations pointed out

aspects of the paintings or of the style of the artists which might be of interest to readers.

Stringa’s remarks on works of art, however, tend to be generic in character and to refer

mainly to the ‘nobility’ or ‘excellence’ of the execution.

Other descriptions of early works of art added to the second edition are limited to

basic information about titles, locations and dates. For instance, Stringa briefly mentionds

Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (fig. 12) as a work by the

hand of the ‘great Gian Bellini’, located in the sacristy.76 Given the position of the sacristy,

separated from the rest of the church (fig. 13), it may be that Sansovino had simply not

visited it and therefore had not recorded the painting in the first edition.77 This explanation

is supported by Sansovino’s omission of another painting in the same church, which Stringa

included in his account: Bartolomeo Vivarini’s triptych of St Mark (fig. 14), also located in

an isolated place in the Cornaro chapel.78 There is a short description of the triptych in

Vasari’s Lives; 79 but since Sansovino failed to mention the painting, it seems clear that he

was not making extensive use of Vasari’s work as a source.

These examples also give an indication of the way in which Sansovino recorded

works of art: he seems to have jotted down those paintings which he happened to see and

73 Ibid., fol. 59v: ‘Vi dipinse anco la palla del San Giovanni, Gian Battista da Conigliano.’ 74 Ibid., fol. 146r: ‘la pala di quello di San Giovanni Battista fu dipinta da Giovanni Battista da Conegliano, ove

oltre quattro altre figure di Santi, vedesi dipinto il nobilissimo sito della sua patria in vaghissima maniera’; see L. Coletti, Cima da Conegliano, Venice 1959, p. 78. This painting was mentioned in the 1581 edition, without any further description; see Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 10r: ‘È assai notabile per pitture fatte ne’tempi conciosia che l’Altar maggiore fù opera di Gian Battista da Conegliano, dove è ritratto il bellissimo sito della sua patria.’ 75 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 147v: ‘nella cappella dell’altar dell’Annunciata, che giace a man dritta nella cappella Maggiore, la cui pala è nobilissima per esser stata da Giovanni Battista da Conegliano eccellentissimo Pittore dipinta’. 76 Ibid., fol. 157v: ‘Vi dipinse anco il gran Pittore Gian Bellino la pala dell’altare, posto nella Sagrestia’; see Gamba, Bellini, pp. 134-5. 77 For further details about the Sacristy Chapel of the Pesaro, see R. Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice. Bellini, Titian and the Franciscans, New Haven and London 1986, p. 38. 78 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 159v: ‘l’altare sotto titolo di S. Marco, la cui pala dipinta si vede da Bartolomeo Vivarino da Murano’. In Sansovino’s book, this painting was attributed to Antonio Vivarini; see Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 66v: ‘Vi dipinse anco Antonio Vivarino la palla della seconda cappella verso la Sagrestia.’ In reality, as the signature shows, the altarpiece was by Bartolomeo Vivarini; see R. Pallucchini, I Vivarini, Venice 1962, pp. 121-2. 79 Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 162-3: ‘nella sagrestia de’ Frati Minori, detta Ca grande, n’è un’altra di mano del medesimo, fatta con bel disegno e buona maniera’.

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which he admired in the churches of Venice, occasionally expressing his views about them.

He generally took note of the paintings which were located on the main altar of a church or

on the altars of important chapels, including most of the signed and dated works. His

omissions were probably for the most part due to his lack of thoroughness and to his

unsystematic selection of works of art to be described in his book. There is no evidence

that he chose to include or exclude paintings according to his own preferences.

Stringa, for his part, did not add much information about early painters. If we

compare the number of new entries on early works of art with those on more recent

paintings by artists such as Sante Peranda, Tintoretto and Veronese, the balance is strongly

in favour of the latter group. Moreover, when discussing recent paintings, Stringa employed

a richer vocabulary than for earlier ones. For instance, he writes that the figure of Esther in

Veronese’s painting in San Sebastiano was depicted ‘with such great movement, beautiful

draperies and delicate colouring that it was held to be a magnificent thing’ (fig. 15).80 The

reason why he devoted more attention to work by modern artists was obviously that his

principal aim was to provide an up-to-date account of painters and paintings which had not

been included in the 1581 edition. Giving information about recent works was also a good

way to arouse the interest of readers.

The Third Edition of Venetia città nobilissima (1663) by Giustiniano Martinioni

In the third edition of Venetia città nobilissima, the editor Giustiniano Martinioni, who was

also the first titular priest at SS. Apostoli in Venice,81 introduced new and significant

material about paintings before 1550.82 If we compare the additions in the second and third

80 Sansovino/Stringa, Venetia, fol. 183r: ‘con tanta forza d’atti, con sì bei panni, e con colorito tanto gentile, che fu riputata per cosa illustre.’ 81 See frontispiece of the third edition of Sansovino’s work, in Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, and Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni, IV, p. 72. 82 There were twenty-two new additions of works; these are by Luigi Vivarini (one in San Ieronimo, Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 176), Bartolomeo Vivarini (one in Santa Maria Formosa, ibid., p. 40, and one in Sant’Eufemia, ibid., p. 251), Vittore Carpaccio (one in San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, ibid., p. 47, and one in San Ieronimo, ibid., p. 176), Gentile Bellini, (one in Madonna dell’Orto, ibid., p. 167), Giovanni Bellini (nine works: one in San Giovanni dei Forlani, ibid., p. 47; one in San Francesco della Vigna, ibid., p. 53; one in San Felice, ibid., p. 147; two in San Ieronimo, ibid., p. 176; one in San Cristoforo della Pace, ibid., p. 234; one in Chiesa dei Capuccini, ibid., p. 256; one in Santa Maria Maggiore, ibid., p. 270, and one in Palazzo Ducale,

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editions, we see that there are only a few shared entries.83 This suggests that, even though

Stringa’s name is mentioned several times in the third edition, Martinioni worked

independently in collecting the information with which he enriched the book. It seems that

he mainly built on and referred to the first edition, preserving all of its contents, without

including very much material from the second edition.

By focusing on a number of earlier paintings which Martinioni recorded in his

edition, I will try to clarify the way in which he compiled his information, what his working

methods and sources were, and whether he wanted to update Sansovino’s book by adding

material mainly about earlier or about later works of art.

Martinioni seems to have made a clear distinction between modern and ‘ancient’

paintings. For instance, while listing a number of paintings in Santa Maria delle Carmine, he

stated that ‘there are other worthy paintings, both ancient and modern; among the ancient

ones, there is the Nativity of Our Lord painted by Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano,

in which he depicted St Helen and other figures’; and among the modern ones, in the same

church, he mentioned paintings by Tintoretto and Iacopo Palma.84 Bartolomeo Vivarini’s

works in Santa Maria Formosa and Sant’Eufemia were also described as ‘ancient’.85 It is not

clear whether Martinioni’s divisions of paintings into these two categories influenced his

assessment of them. Generally, his notes for each entry are relatively brief and precise, in

line with Sansovino’s original accounts. There are, nonetheless, a number of somewhat

more detailed remarks throughout the book about the style of a particular artist or the

quality of his work. The most common phrases he uses to refer to a painting are

‘stimatissima’, 86 ‘commendabile’ and ‘fatta con molto artificio e diligenza’, as he describes a

painting by Giovanni Bellini in the church of San Girolamo.87 Martinioni claimed that Cima

ibid., p. 338), Cima da Conegliano (six works: two in Santa Maria de’ Crocicchieri, ibid., p. 169; one in San Ieronimo, ibid., p. 176; one in San Michele, ibid., p. 236; one in Santa Maria delle Carmine, ibid., p. 263, and one in San Giovanni della Giudecca, ibid., p. 257), Giovanni Buonconsiglio (one in San Cosmo e Damiano, ibid., p. 254) and Albrecht Dürer (one in Sant’Anna, ibid., p. 24). 83 Both editions mention Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna in San Felice and the Virgin Annunciate by Cima da Conegliano in Santa Maria de’ Croccichieri. 84 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 263: ‘Vi sono altre degne pitture, così antiche, come moderne: delle antiche, è la Natività di Nostro Signore dipinta da Gio: Battista Cima da Conegliano, dove ritrasse S. Elena, e altre figure. Di Jacopo Tintoretto è la Tavola della Circoncisione, creduta da molti dello Schiavone... Di moderno si vede di Iacopo Palma nella Cappella Maggiore il miracolo di Christo nel satiar con poco pane fameliche Turbe.’ 85 Ibid., p. 40: ‘Si vede ancora un’antica Tavola dipinta l’anno 1457 da Bartolomeo Vivarino’, and p. 251: ‘Di antico si conserva una tavola di mano di Bartolomeo Vivarini.’ 86 E.g., he refers to Jacopo Palma’s St John in San Cassano as a ‘pittura stimatissima’: ibid., p. 200. 87 Ibid., p. 176: ‘il tutto fatto con molto artificio e diligenza’.

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da Conegliano’s painting of the Madonna with Sts Nicholas and Ursula in the church of San

Ieronimo was considered to be among the artist’s best works.88 Although these are the only

occasions on which he expresses appreciation for works of art, this does not necessarily

that he considered other paintings, on which he made no pronouncements, to be less

important or less beautiful. In dealing with all three editions of Venetia città nobilissima, we

need to keep in mind the purpose of the book: to promote the culture of Venice and its

illustrious citizens. It did not provide in-depth descriptions of works of art, but only brief

notes. Even though few works of art were praised, a number of these were early paintings,

both in the original edition and in the later ones.

Of the early works of art added by Martinioni, two were mentioned by Vasari, but

the descriptions are not similar.89 Where, then, did Martinioni get his information? I have

checked all the early paintings recorded by Martinioni to see whether the artists signed and

dated their works and it turns out that most of them did so.90 It is likely, therefore, that his

accounts were based on this data.

Five of the additions in the 1663 edition, however, correspond to Carlo Ridolfi’s

accounts of early painters in his Le meraviglie dell’arte (1648). For instance, when referring to

a painting of St Jerome by Luigi Vivarini, Martinioni wrote: ‘Luigi Vivarino…depicted the

88 Ibid.: ‘È posto in questa Chiesa, ad’un picciolo Altare un quadro di mezze figure, con la Madonna, San Nicolò, e Santa Orsola di Giovanni Battista da Conegliano, stimato per una delle migliore opere sue.’ 89 Both Vasari and Martinioni mention two paintings by Giovanni Bellini: one in San Francesco della Vigna and the other in the Confraternity of San Girolamo, but the descriptions of both are different. Cf. Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 53: ‘vedesi la Cappella della Concettione...dove nell’Altare è posta la Tavola con la Vergine, e San Sebastiano di mano di Gio: Bellino’, with Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, p. 163: ‘ed in San Francesco della Vigna, dove stanno Frati del Zoccolo, nella chiesa vecchia, era in un quadro un Cristo morto, tanto bello, che que’ signori, essendo quello molto celebrato a Lodovico Undecimo re di Francia, furono quasi forzati, domandandolo egli con istanza, sebbene mal volentieri, a compiacernelo: in luogo del qual ne fu messo un altro col nome del medesimo Giovanni, ma non così bello nè cosi ben condotto come il primo’; and Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 176: ‘Nella scuola di esso Santo, vedesi doi Quadri di Gio: Bellino, in uno stà il Santo Dottore sedente in atto di favellare à suoi Frati, quali siedono anch’essi d’intorno in naturalissime positure: ma più d’ogn’altra cosa viene osservato un Frate, che distende alcuni drappi in una loggia. Nell’altro figurò l’istesso Santo intento al studio con altri Frati, che leggono, altri, che discorrono, il tutto fatto con molto artificio, e diligenza, e quivi il Pittore vi pose il suo nome, e il tempo, che li fece, che fù del 1464’, with Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 163-4: ‘Nella Confraternità parimente di San Girolamo è un’opera del medesimo Bellino, di figure piccolo molto lodate.’ 90 The practice of signing and dating Venetian paintings was widespread from the fourteenth century. Venetian painters signed and dated their works on a cartellino or a fictive stone parapet placed near the base of the painting: e.g., Bartolommeo Vivarini’s St Ambrose Polyptych in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice: ‘BARTHOLOMEUS VIVARINUS DE MURIANO PINXIT. 1477’; Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna of the Trees in the Accademia: ‘IOANNES BELLINUS P. 1487’; Cima da Conegliano’s Lamentation in the Accademia: ‘Ioannis Baptiste Coneglanenis opus’; and Vittore Carpaccio’s Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand in the Accademia: ‘V. Carpathius MDXV’. For more information on this topic, as well as the changes in signature practices on Venetian paintings between the 15th and the 16th centuries, see L. C. Matthew, ‘The Painter’s Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures’, The Art Bulletin, 80, 1998, pp. 616-48.

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Holy Father followed by the lion, which, when it is seen by the brothers, they appear to flee

into the cloister’.91 Ridolfi’s discussion is more complete, but includes similar information:

‘In the Company of St Jerome, he portrayed that saint and cardinal followed by the lion

from whose foot he had drawn the thorn, and his frightened brothers flee through the

portal to the cloisters and the church in front of which a river flows is painted with great

attention.’92 Another example is Martinioni’s description of Bartolomeo Vivarini’s stories

from the life of the Virgin in Santa Maria Formosa: ‘One can also see an ancient painting

made in 1457 by Bartolomeo Vivarini, divided into three parts, with the encounter between

Joachim and Anne, the Birth of the Virgin and the Virgin who gathers many of her

devotees under her mantle.’93 Ridolfi’s very similar account reads: ‘The fifth [painting] in

Santa Maria Formosa, divided into three parts: to the right there is the encounter between

Joachim and Anne, to the left, the Birth of the Virgin and in the middle, the same Virgin,

who gathers her devotees under her mantle, was made in 1475.’94

That Martinioni sometimes drew on Ridolfi is further proven by three other nearly

identical passages describing works by Bartolomeo Vivarini, Vittore Carpaccio and

Giovanni Buonconsiglio.95 Since, however, Martinioni added twenty-six works, only five of

which are in common with Ridolfi, his reliance on this source was limited. Also there were

many other works mentioned by Ridolfi which Martinioni could have included in the book,

but did not do so. Martinioni was apparently interested in filling out Sansovino’s edition

91 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 176: ‘Luigi Vivarino anch’egli fece il Santo Padre seguito dal Leone, che veduto da i Frati, pare che se ne fuggano nei chiostri.’ 92 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 36: ‘Nella Compagnia di San Girolamo ritrasse quel Santo Cardinale seguito dal Leone a cui tratto haveva la spina dal piede, e i suoi frati impauriti se ne fuggono per entro a’Chiostri; e vi è figurata con molta patienza la Chiesa dinanzi, alla quale passa un fiume.’ 93 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 40: ‘Si vede ancora un’antica Tavola dipinta l’anno 1457 da Bartolomeo

Vivarino, divisa in tre spatii, con l’incontro di Gioachino e Anna, la Natività della Vergine e l’istessa Vergine, che raccoglie sotto al suo manto molti suoi divoti.’ 94 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 38: ‘La quinta in Santa Maria formosa divisa in tre vani, nel destro è l’incontro di Gioachino e Anna: nel sinistro la nascita della Vergine, e nel mezzo la medesima, che raccoglie sotto il manto alcuni suoi divoti, operata l’anno 1475.’ 95 Cf. Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 40: ‘Si vede ancora un’antica Tavola dipinta l’anno 1457 da Bartolomeo Vivarino, divisa in tre spatii, con l’incontro di Gioachino, e Anna, la Natività della Vergine, e l’istessa Vergine, che raccoglie sotto al suo manto molti suoi divoti’, with Ridofi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 38, quoted in n. 94 above. Cf. also Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 176: ‘Nel secondo lo figurò morto steso sopra una stora, co’ Frati piangenti, che tengono lumi in mano, fatti con proprie attitudini du duolo, e di mestitia’, with Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 36: ‘Nell’altra è quell defonto Cardinale steso sopra ruvida stora, co’ Frati piangenti co’ lumi in mano, che nelle attitudini e nella mestitia de’ volti rappresentano il duolo’; and Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 254: ‘la sottoscrittione posta nella Sede della Vergine, che dice: Ioannes Bonconsilius Mariscalchus de Vicentia 1497’, with Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 43: ‘e nel sedile della Vergine scrisse Ioannes Bonconsilius Marescalcus de Vicentia 1497.’

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rather than in providing exhaustive information on Venetian monuments and art. There is

no clear indication, however, of why he chose to include particular works and not others.

Even though Sansovino was not aiming at comprehensive and systematic coverage,

his descriptions of works of art, while not particularly revealing of his attitudes and

preferences, nevertheless contain certain elements of novelty in the interpretation of early

Venetian paintings, which would be developed more fully in the artistic literature of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The artistic vocabulary he used when describing the

paintings and the careful attention he paid to recording lost works would establish patterns

which writers such as Carlo Ridolfi, Marco Boschini and Antonio Maria Zanetti would

enrich and redefine in their later guidebooks and biographies of artists.

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CHAPTER 2

Could Early Renaissance Paintings be considered Marvels of Art? Carlo Ridolfi and

the Biographies of Early Italian Artists

Carlo Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie dell’arte was published in Venice in 1648. The text builds on

Vasari’s model of biographies of artists and discusses the lives of the most important

Venetian and non-Venetian painters who worked in Venice, whether they undertook public

or private commissions. Ridolfi’s biographies occupy a significant place within the local

artistic literature of the Seicento because of their exclusive focus on painters.1 A

contemporary equivalent to this specialized approach, but in the format of a guidebook to

the most important paintings in Venice, is Marco Boschini’s Le minere (1663).2 This

tendency towards specialization was continued during the eighteenth century in the writings

of Tommaso Temanza (biographies of architects and sculptors) and Antonio Maria Zanetti

the Younger (biographies of painters).3

Ridolfi’s work, he tells us, was the result of the encouragement he received from the

publisher Giovanni Battista Sgava and from his own circle of literary friends;4 and his

initiative to write biographies solely of painters can be explained by the fact that he himself

was a painter and perhaps also because information about sculptors was not so easy to

assemble or because writers tended to give preeminence to painting.5 Having been trained

in the workshop of Antonio Vassilacchi l’Aliense,6 he adopted a late mannerist style

1 See Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 531. 2 I discuss Boschini’s Le minere in Chapter 3 below. 3 See Angelo Comoli, Bibliografia storica-critica dell’architettura civile ed arti subalterne, 4 vols, Rome 1788, II, p. 282; see also Tommaso Temanza, Vite, and Zanetti, Della pittura. 4 Among them, he names the noblemen and writers Giovanni Francesco Loredano (1607-1661), Pietro Michiele (active 1632-1658), Nicolò Crasso (1586-1656), Giulio Strozzi (1583-1652), Antonio Romiti, Jacopo Pighetti, Angelico Aprosio (1607-1681) and Alessandro Berardelli (active 1626-1650); see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, II, p. 308. 5 T. Frangenberg, ‘The Art of Talking about Sculpture: Vasari, Borghini and Bocchi’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 58, 1995, pp. 115-31, at p. 115. 6 Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 295: ‘mi accommodò in casa dell’Aliense Pittore’. On Ridolfi’s life and artistic activity, see his autobiography in Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, II, pp. 306-23, and Pellegrino Orlandi, Abecedario pittorico, Venice 1753, p. 117.

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influenced by Palma il Vecchio, Veronese and Tintoretto.7 By examining his biographies of

early artists, we will be able to see how Ridolfi, from his dual perspective as a writer and an

artist, relates to the previous generations of Venetian painters and what contributions he

brought to the reception and appreciation of Venetian art, both locally and outside Venice.

Ridolfi’s biographies were also a response to Vasari’s Lives, promoting the

preeminence of Venetian, as opposed to Florentine, painting. For instance, in the short

introduction to the first part, he takes issue with Vasari’s belief in the superiority of

Florentine art:

... in modern times, painting was first revived in Venice, before it had been introduced in

Florence, as Vasari has it, when he says that in 1240 some painters were called from Greece

to Florence by the Florentines to restore the art in their city, and then he continues with

great ostentation to describe the works of Cimabue, Andrea Tafi, Gado Gadi, Giotto,

Stefano, Pietro Laureati, Bufalmacco and other Florentine painters.8

It was Ridolfi’s intention to argue in favour of Venetian artists and to maintain that

praiseworthy painting existed in Venice before Cimabue and Giotto were working in

Florence. In his opinion, it was in the early fourteenth century that significant changes

began to happen in Venetian art: ‘after 1300 the manner of painting started to improve, and

among those who made significant works of art in Venice was Guariento from Padua’.9

Guariento’s fresco in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Ducale (fig. 16)

was among the earliest Venetian paintings discussed by Ridolfi. As he informs us, the fresco

7 For Ridolfi’s activity as painter, see K. Prijatelj, ‘Le opere di Carlo Ridolfi in Dalmazia’, Arte Veneta, 22, 1969, pp. 183-5. 8 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 31: ‘la Pittura ne’ moderni tempi si rinovasse in Venetia, prima che fosse introdotta in Firenze, come riferisce il Vasari, dicendo che da Fiorentini l’anno 1240 furono chiamati di Grecia alcuni Pittori per rimetter l’arte nella Città loro, seguendo egli con molta ostentatione à descrivere le opere di Cimabue [1240-1302], d’Andrea Tafi [?-1320], di Gado Gadi [1260-1333], di Giotto [1267-1337], di Stefano [1320-1369], di Pietro Laureati [1320-1348], di Bufalmacco [1320-1336] e d’altri suoi Pittori.’ In listing these painters, Ridolfi maintains the order in which Vasari presented them; see also Vasari, Le vite, (1550), p. 103 : ‘ma – quel che importava assai più – spentone affatto tutto’l numero degli artefici, quando, come Dio volse, nacque nella città di Fiorenza l’anno MCCXL, per dare i primi lumi all’arte della pittura, Giovanni cognominato Cimabue’; for further examples of Vasari’s Tuscan campanilismo, see Le vite (1550), pp. 109, 111, 114, 117, 130, 136 and 144. Ridolfi’s disagreement with Vasari was not an isolated position in seventeenth-century writings on art. As we shall see, the expansion of local schools of painting in various towns of Italy, other than Florence, also encouraged such reactions. 9 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 32: ‘Quando dopo l’anno 1300, si cominciò à migliorar la maniera, e trà quelli, che fecero opera di qualche consideratione in quella Città fu Guariento Padovano.’

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was later replaced by Tintoretto’s depiction of Paradise (fig. 17).10 Ridolfi describes

Guariento’s fresco in great detail, giving precise information about the figures which

composed the scene:

In the middle he represented the Saviour, who was about to place a golden crown above

the head of his Virgin Mother. They were surrounded by a number of holy angels,

cherubim and seraphim, just as they are described in the Holy Scriptures. Beneath, one

reads the following verses by Dante

L’Amor, che mosse già l’Eterno Padre

Per figlia haver di sua Deità trina

Costei, che fu del suo figlio poi Madre,

De l’universo qui la fa Regina.11

But how did Ridolfi know about Guariento’s fresco, given that it had been covered over by

Tintoretto’s painting? As he tells us, though without giving a specific reference, there were

other ‘writers on Venetian matters’ who mentioned Guariento’s works in their accounts.12

Ridolfi most likely based a part of his account on Sansovino, who mentioned Guariento’s

fresco and the year in which it was made.13 There were also two visual sources available

10 Ibid.: ‘hor ricoperto da quello del Tintoretto’. 11 Ibid.: ‘nel cui mezzo rappresentò il Salvatore in atto di poner aurea corona in capo alla Vergine Madre sua, con numero di Beati all’intorno, Angeli, Cherubini e Serafini, come ci vengono descritti nelle sacre carte: e sotto quello leggevansi questi versi di Dante ...’ As Hadeln noted in his edition of Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie, these verses are in the style of Dante, but they are not by him; see ibid., p. 33, n. 1. For further information, see Dante Alighieri, Rime, ed. D. de Robertis, 3 vols, Florence 2002, II.2, pp. 1014, 1056 and 1099, and L. Frati, ‘Tradizioni storiche del Purgatorio di S. Patrizio’, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 7, 1891, pp. 46-79, at p. 54. I thank Alessandro Scafi for his help in investigating this matter further. 12 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, p. 33: ‘Raccontano ancora gli scrittori delle cose Venete che Guariento dipingesse in quella sala.’ Ridolfi repeatedly mentions the Venetian chronicles, including those by Marcantonio Sabellico, Scardeone and Marin Sanudo, throughout his book. 13 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 123v: ‘Guariento, il quale, l’anno 1365 vi fece il Paradiso in testa della Sala’. One of the earliest references to the fresco was by Michele Savonarola in Libellus de magnificis ornamentis regie civitatis Padue, ed. A. Sergarizzi, Castello 1902, p. 44: ‘Guarientus autem magnificum, stupendum, superbumque nimis serenissimi dominii Veneti pretorium, quod Sala Maior nominatur, digitis propriis miro cum artificio depinxit, illudque mirum in modum ornavit. Cuius intuitus tanta cum aviditate expectatur, ut cum adest solemnis Ascensionis dies, quo omnibus ingressus licet, nulla supersit diei hora, qua locus innumerabili diversarum patriarum hominum copia non repleatur, tantusque est earum admirandarum figurarum iucundus aspectus, et tanti depicti conflictus admiranda res, ut nemo exitum querat.’ Another author with whom Ridolfi was familiar was Bernardo Scardeone: as we shall see, he explicity referred to Scardeone in his biographies of Paduan artists. Scardeone’s account of Guariento is, however, less likely to have been Ridolfi’s source, given its rather general character; see Scardeone, De antiquitate, p. 370: ‘Guarientes Patavinus pictor egregius, qui ob eximiam illius artis peritiam accitus a Veneto Senatu Venetias, pinxit ibi curiam magni consilii pulcherrimo

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which reproduced Guariento’s fresco. The first one was an anonymous print produced

after the restoration of the fresco by Francesco Cevola in 1541, illustrating the Sala del

Gran Consiglio during a meeting presided over by the doge (fig. 18).14 He is seated

underneath Guariento’s fresco depicting the Coronation of the Virgin at centre and the

Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation placed in tabernacles on the sides above the two

entrance doors.15 The other was Paolo Forlani’s engraving of the Sala del Gran Consiglio

dating from 1566 (fig. 19), which also shows a meeting of the members of the council

presided over by the doge and his party, who are seated underneath Guariento’s fresco,

which is shown in reverse.16 In the places occupied by the Virgin and the Angel in the

painting, there are two explanatory cartouches. The one at top right states that Guariento’s

fresco was painted ‘alla greca’,17 a term which was often used by writers of artistic literature

when describing Trecento painting.18 The cartouche on the left reproduces the inscription

underneath the main scene, with the quotation from Dante that Ridolfi also transcribed. It

is significant, for our purposes, that in the inscription below the image, which contains a

descriptive account of all the works in the Sala, a distinction between ancient and modern

works is made.19 The importance of both prints lies in their function: they are visual

documents that record, in its original location, a fresco which was subsequently replaced by

another work. They thus complement the written accounts which only allowed readers to

apparatu colorum et figurarum.’ Vasari mentioned the fresco, but attributed it to Antonio Veneziano; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), VII, p. 99: ‘la facciata principale della sala grande del Consiglio dove già dipinse Antonio Viniziano’. 14 The print is in the collection of the Museo Correr; see A. Moschetti, ‘Il ‘‘Paradiso’’ del Guariento nel Palazzo Ducale di Venezia’, L’Arte, 7, 1904, pp. 394-97, at p. 394. 15 See G. Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alla storia del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, Venice 1868, p. 180. I would like to thank Dr Joachim Jacoby for bringing this print to my attention. 16 Paolo Forlani was a prolific engraver of maps who worked in Venice. He collaborated with different Venetian publishers including Giovanni Francesco Camocio, Ferrando Bertelli and Bolognino Zaltieri. The latter published Forlani’s print of the Sala del Gran Consiglio; see D. Woodward, ‘Paolo Forlani: Compiler, Engraver, Printer, or Publisher?’, Imago mundi, 44, 1992, pp. 45-64 and his The Maps and Prints of Paolo Forlani A Descriptive Bibliography, Chicago 1990, p. 38, and Lorenzi, Monumenti, p. 180. The print was also reproduced in F. Zanotto, Il Palazzo Ducale illustrato, 4 vols, Venice 1841-1861, III, ill. CXXV; see also E. Cicogna, Saggio di bibliografia veneziana, Venice 1847, p. 641, entry 4666. 17 See inscription on the print on top right: ‘Il Paradiso dipinto alla Greca ... Paradisus usu Graeco depictus.’ 18 On ‘maniera greca’, see n. 25 below. For a list of the most common artistic terms used with reference to early Renaissance works of art in the writings between 1550 and 1800, see Appendices IX and X in volume two of this dissertation. 19 Paolo Forlani, Il Gran Consiglio di Venetia, Venice, 1566, engraving, London, The British Museum, no. 1872,0511.819, inscription below image: ‘D’intorno vi sono 20 quadri antiqui e moderni cioè di Giovan Bellino, Gentil Bellino, Vettor Carpatio, Titiano, Giacomo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Oratio figliuolo di Titiano ... circum circa et nostro et altero seculo depicte 20 visuntur tabulae opera hec sunt Ioannis et Gentilis Bellino, Victoris Carpatii, Titiani, Jacobi Tintoretti, Pauli Veron, Horatii Titiani filii.’

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imagine what the Sala del Gran Consiglio may have looked like before the fire in 1577.

When Tintoretto’s work replaced Guariento’s, printmakers also started to represent the

new version: Giacomo Franco produced an engraving which, like Forlani’s print, showed a

meeting of the Gran Consiglio with Tintoretto’s painting decorating the great hall (fig. 20).

The next artists acknowledged by Ridolfi to have established a good reputation for

themselves in Venice were Francesco and Jacobello del Fiore.20 He mentions a number of

works by Jacobello, occasionally giving his personal opinion about the paintings.21 In most

cases, however, he seems to have consulted and drawn on Sansovino’s accounts of

Jacobello. For instance, when referring to the painting of St Peter Martyr in SS. Giovanni e

Paolo, both writers note that it was later replaced by Titian.22 In Corpo di Christo, Ridolfi

briefly mentions another painting by Jacobello, without giving the subject.23 Sansovino, on

the other hand, informs his readers that it was a depiction of St Dominic,24 which was

painted in the ‘Greek manner’.25 There were also differences of opinion between Sansovino

and Ridolfi, especially when referring to the works in the Scuola della Carità. In the

Albergo, Sansovino rightly attributed the painting of the Madonna to Antonio Vivarini (fig.

21),26 whereas Ridolfi assigned it to Jacobello, even though it was signed and dated. There

20 According to Ridolfi, their reputation was due to the ‘reform’ which they brought about in painting; however, it is not clear what exactly this entailed; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 33: ‘Crebbe la Pittura di riputazione in Francesco, e Iacobello Flore, perche aggiunsero all’arte alcuna riforma, onde con facilità puotero que’primi Artefici acquistar nome, e riputatione con le fatiche loro.’ 21 Of Jacobello del Fiore, Ridolfi records a painting of the Virgin and the Child in the confraternity of the Charity, the depiction of St Peter Martyr in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, one painting in the church of Corpus Domini and another one of the Virgin and Child in the chapel of Marco Morosini in the church of San Francesco della Vigna. Ridolfi does not seem follow a specific order when listing the paintings and the churches; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, pp. 33-5. 22 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 23v: ‘Quela di s. Pietro martire, prima da Jacomello dal Fiore e poi rifatta del tutto da Titiano pittore illustre’, and Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 34: ‘Dicessi ancora, ch’egli dipingesse la tavola di San Pietro Martire nella Chiesa di San Giovanni e Paolo, rinovata poscia da Titiano.’ 23 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 34: ‘Era nel Corpus Domini un’altra Pittura’. 24 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 62r: ‘la palla di s. Domenico, di Jacomello de Flore’. 25 Ibid.: ‘dipinse con maniera greca opera per la città’. See also Vasari, Le vite, (1568), III, p. 635: ‘In Venezia ne’ medesimi tempi, fu tenuto in pregio, sebbene tenne la maniera greca, Iacobello de Flore.’ The term ‘maniera greca’ had a twofold meaning in Vasari’s Lives, where it could refer to la buona maniera antica of ancient Greek art or to la maniera greca vecchia of Byzantine art. In these passages, Sansovino and Vasari were obviously using the term in the second sense. For a detailed discussion, see E. Concina, ‘Giorgio Vasari, Francesco Sansovino e la ‘‘maniera greca’’’, in Hadriatica. Attorno a Venezia e al Medioevo tra arti, storia e storiografia, ed. E. Concina, G. Trovabene, M. Agazzi, Padua 2002, pp. 89-96. On the terms maniera greca and maniera tedesca, see T. S. R. Boase, “‘The Maniera Greca” and “The Maniera Tedesca”’, in his Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book, Princeton 1979, pp. 73-92 and 93-118. 26 See Chapter 1, n. 57 above and Pallucchini, I Vivarini, p. 62. The painting was made by Antonio Vivarini in

collaboration with Giovanni d’Alemagna in 1446. Ridolfi’s misattribution was repeated by Boschini and Zanetti.

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was a painting by Jacobello in the Scuola della Carità, but its subject was different.27

Although Ridolfi misattributed the painting of the Madonna, he still provided a detailed

description of the figures which composed the scene:

in a very able painting there is the figure of the Virgin sitting on a rich and sumptuous chair

with intaglios. She holds Our Lord as an infant in her arms and a little book in her right

hand. To the sides, she is surrounded by four gracious angels, who are holding the canopy

which covers her, and in the background there is a view of a majestic palace. In the two

wings, there are the four Doctors of the Church: Pope Gregory with the cross and the dove

on his shoulder; next, St Jerome dressed as cardinal, his cowl on his head and holding the

church in his hand; St Ambrose dressed in a bishop’s garments with a whip; and St

Augustine with a cape embroidered in exquisitely made gold figures, a gilded mitre and

other gracious ornaments. This work was very much esteemed by the Venetians of those

times.28

Another example of misattribution occurs with regard to the Madonna and Child

Enthroned in Marc’Antonio Morosini’s chapel in San Francesco della Vigna. Sansovino says

that it was by Francesco da Negroponte,29 while Ridolfi presents it as a painting by

Jacobello and provides further details about the subject, writing: ‘in the chapel of Marco

Morosini, there is preserved the figure of the Madonna seated on a chair with her hands

joined together in adoration of the child, who sits on her lap. Her mantle is depicted with

27 According to Sansovino, Jacobello’s painting in the Scuola della Carità, which is now lost, represented the apostles; see Sansovino, Venetia, f. 99v: ‘vi sono gli Apostoli fatti a guazzo maggiori del natural, da Iacomello dal Fiore che visse l’an 1418’. 28 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 34: ‘In quadro assai capace è la figura della Vergine sedente in ricca, e sontuosa sede inserita di vaghi intagli, che tiene in braccio Nostro Signore fanciullo, e un libretto nella destra mano; ha dalle parti quattro gratiosi Angeletti, che tengono l’ombrella, che la ricopre, e di dietro passa la veduta di maestoso Palagio. Ne’ due vani delle parti sono compartiti i Quattro Dottori della Chiesa, San Gregorio Papa con la Croce e la Colomba sopra alla spalla, San Girolamo appresso vestito da Cardinal e col capuccio in testa e la Chiesa in mano, e Santo Ambrogio parato con la Pianeta e la sferza e Sant’Agostino col piviale ricamato con figure d’oro raramente fatte e diademe dorate in capo ed altri gratiosi ornamenti: qual’opera fu per all’hora assai stimata da Venetiani.’ 29 Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 15v: ‘Nella la cappella di Nostra Donna, la cui palla fu dipinta da fra Francesco da Negroponte assai buon maestro’.

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such artistry that it seems to be brocade.’30 In fact, neither of the attributions is correct: the

painting was executed by Antonio da Negroponte.31

Despite his inaccurate note-taking, one of Ridolfi’s main contributions to his book

was to express his own opinions about paintings and to attempt attributions. Ocasionally,

he revealed his preferences and indicated which of the early artists he considered to be the

most distinguished. The first recognition in the book of the merit of an early painter, as

well as the first criticism of a painter, came in his life of Bartolomeo Vivarini. Regarded by

Ridolfi as the best painter of the Vivarini family, Bartolomeo was nevertheless criticized for

his slightly old-fashioned manner of painting.32 Listing six of his paintings in the various

churches of Venice, Ridolfi singles out for special praise the altarpiece in the church of SS

Giovanni e Paolo (fig. 22):

The sixth, considered to be the best, is the one in the church of SS Giovanni e Paolo,

located in the first altar, inside the main door to the left; in the middle area is the seated

figure of St Augustine, at the sides are Sts Mark and John the Baptist, and above the Virgin

together with Sts Dominic and Vincent... It is regarded as one of his best works.33

Another aspect which Ridolfi seems to have valued in early paintings of religious

subjects was their ability to inspire devotion, a characteristic which he identified in most of

Marco Basaiti’s renderings of saints.34 Drawing attention to the high altar of the church of

Sant’Andrea in Certosa, where Basaiti depicted the Calling of the Sons of Zebedee, Ridolfi

claimed that those who gazed at such a beautiful painting were imbued with a sense of piety

30 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, pp. 34-5: ‘nella Cappella di Marco Morosini conservasi la figura della Vergine Nostra Signora sedente sopra trasforato seggio con le mani gionte adorante il Bambino, che ha disteso sù le ginocchia, il manto della quale è finto con tale artificio, che par di broccato.’ 31 A. M. Schulz, La cappella Badoer-Giustinian in San Francesco della Vigna a Venezia, Florence 2003, p. 101. 32 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 38: ‘il migliore per avventura di tutti loro’, and ‘tutto che non sapesse dipartirsi dall’usata maniera’. 33 Ibid.: ‘La sesta riputata la migliore è la quella della Chiesa de’Santi Giovanni e Paolo, posta nel primo Altare dentro la porta maggiore a mano manca, ove nello spatio di mezzo è Santo Agostino sedente, dalle parti San Marco, e San Giovan Battista, e di sopra la Vergine e li Santi Domenico e Vincenzo nella quale Bartolomeo si diportò vantaggiosamente bene dall’altare, e è nella stimata delle migliori sue operationi.’ For more information on this painting, see Pallucchini, I Vivarini, pp. 46-7. Ridolfi did not correctly identify all the saints: the figure on the right is not St Vincent, but St Lawrence. 34 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 42: ‘il Basaiti il quale arrecò alle immagini de’ Santi certa purità, che muove gli animi alla divotione, parte veramente molto degna nel Pittore’.

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and devotion: just as the sons of Zebedee were called to become apostles of Christ, so

viewers of the picture were encouraged to live a more pious life.35

This attitude was typical of seventeenth-century writers on art, who, when

evaluating early Renaissance paintings, often insisted on this religious aspect and measured

the quality of a picture in terms of the impact which it had on the viewer. For instance,

comparing Trecento paintings with those of his own day, Carlo Cesare Malvasia concluded,

in his Felsina pittrice, that the former were of greater value in this respect:

Let me be excused for a cautious choice...since nowadays these painters are condemned for

their dry and hard manner; but it cannot be denied, at any rate, that their works inspire a

certain veneration and piety which the painters of our times do not achieve, in spite of all

their modern smooth, beautiful and refined strokes. And this is the reason why they

[Trecento paintings] were so esteemed.36

Malvasia supported his argument by referring to the Bolognese painter Lippo Dalmasio,

whose depictions of the Madonna were particularly favoured by collectors for their private

devotions.37 Also mentioned by Malvasia – and repeated by Filippo Baldinucci – was Guido

Reni’s great admiration for the paintings of the Madonna by Lippo Dalmasio, in which the

he ‘noted something supernatural...because they emanated purity, modesty, decorum and a

great sanctity, all of which no modern painter has ever known how to render at once’.38

Turning to Ridolfi’s biographies, in his life of Giovanni Buonconsiglio, he described

a painting of the Madonna and the Child, together with various saints, in the church of Sts

35 Ibid.: ‘la più singolar sua pittura è quella de la chiesa di Certosa, quivi il Salvatore sopra il lido di Tiberiade chiama a se Pietro e Andrea, e v’appariscono alcuni scogli e una piaggia di mare molto naturale: e con molto decoro figurò il Salvatore, ed in quegli e ne’ loro fratelli ivi rappresentati diede à vedere la prontezza nell’obbedire il suo Signore, che per grido di sua bellezza tra la curiosità di molti a vederla.’ The painting is now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. For further information, see A. Ottieri, ‘Laguna di Venezia, mare di Galilea: la Vocazione dei figli di Zebedeo di Marco Basaiti’, Artibus et historiae, 8, 1987, pp. 77-89. 36 Malvasia, Felsina, I, p. 26: ‘si scusi per una prudente elezione...che severamente oggi si danna per una seccaggine, e durezza; non potendosi ad ogni modo negar mai che non ispirino elleno, le cose di costoro, una certa venerazione, e pietà, che con tutti i liscii, e sbelletti moderni, le tanto raffinate dei nostri non conseguisono. Ed ecco per qual cagione fossero in tanto pregio.’ 37 According to Malvasia, Felsina, I, p. 26, the popes Gregory XIII, Innocent IX and Clement VIII were among the enthusiastic buyers of Dalmasio’s paintings. 38 Malvasia, Felsina, I, p. 26, and Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in quà (7 vols, Florence 1681-1728), ed. V. Batelli, 5 vols, Florence 1845-1847, I, p. 399: ‘l’eccellente pittore Guido Reni era solito dire, che ne’volti delle Madonne di mano di Lippo scorgeva un certo che di sovrumano...perche spiravano una purità, una modestia, un decoro e santità grandissima: le quali cose mai nessun modern pittore aveva saputo tutte in un sol volto fare apparire’.

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Cosmas and Damian, saying that it was ‘a truly fine painting and executed with great style,

which very much fits with the manner that was later employed by the best painters, and all

the more worthy of praise since art was still young’.39 Ridolfi focused on a stylistic analysis,

praising Buonconsiglio’s execution of the painting, which was in advance of its time.

Although it is not possible to say whether his judgement was widely shared in the

seventeenth century, it does seem significant that in these short biographies of early

Renaissance artists he chose to indicate what, in his view, made a painting worthy of praise.

The second group of biographies, which tend to be longer and to have more

coherence, commences with the life of Vittore Carpaccio. Acknowledged by Ridolfi as the

first artist to have improved the style of painting and to have departed from the ‘hard style

of the ancients’, Carpaccio was also among the artists who, in his opinion, deserved to be

called a ‘good master’.40 This was due to the care with which he depicted the portraits of his

figures in order to make them look attractive. Ridolfi divided Carpaccio’s works into two

categories – public and private commissions – and attempted a chronological presentation,

which would not have been too difficult since most of Carpaccio’s works were signed and

dated.41 In discussing the paintings which comprise the legend of St Ursula in the Scuola de

Sant’Orsola, Ridolfi provides a detailed description of each of the nine stories, making

meticulous observations about the figures, their clothing and the interiors. So, for instance,

in his account of The Reception of the English Ambassadors, he notes the figures ‘dressed in rich

clothes with gilded collars, golden chains and jewels round their necks’.42 Writing about

another of the paintings, the Dream of Saint Ursula, he draws particular attention to ‘the

39 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 43: ‘pittura gentile in vero, e con buono stile condotta, e che molto s’accosta alla maniera, che poi fù posta in uso da’ migliori Pittori, e maggiormente è degna di lode, essendo l’arte ancor giovinetta’. 40 Ibid., p. 44: ‘Fu egli nel principio del suo operare di maniera più tosto secca, che nò, ma poscia raddolcì lo stile col progresso del tempo, onde acquistò il titolo di buon maestro, poiche nella spiegatura delle historie non solo ma in certo che di gratia, ch’egli diede all’arie de volti, e per una tale diligenza, che si parte da quella total durezza usata degli antichi, si rende grato e piacevole.’ 41 Ridolfi includes independent works in churches such as Santa Fosca and San Vitale, as well as narrative cycles painted for the Venetian scuole (San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Sant’Orsola and Santo Stefano). In describing a work of art, Ridolfi very rarely indicated its date; however, with reference to Carpaccio’s works, there are two exceptions found in the Scuola di Sant’Orsola: The Martyrdom and Funeral of St Ursula, which he says was executed in 1493, and St Ursula and The Prince Taking Leave, painted in 1495. The other paintings in the Scuola di Sant’Orsola were also dated, but Ridolfi seems to have mentioned these two dates at random: see also J. Lauts, Carpaccio. Paintings and Drawings, London 1962, pp. 228-9. 42 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 46: ‘ricche vesti con bavieri fregiati d’oro, auree catene, con gioielli pandente al collo’.

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noble room where St Ursula was lying on a sumptuous bed’.43 At the end of his closely

observed narrative accounts of the cycle in the Scuola di Sant’Orsola, he states that

Carpaccio’s paintings were still admired by more recent painters as ‘graceful works’.44

Expressing his own view, he says that the perspectives and the variety of garments

enchanted the eyes and that they were executed with great diligence.45

There are two other paintings by Carpaccio which Ridolfi discussed in great detail.

The first, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (fig. 23), was a public commission for the

church of San Giobbe and, in Ridolfi’s opinion, was ‘among his most perfect works’.46 The

other was a private commission for the Venetian physician Viviano Viviani, in which

Carpaccio depicted the Madonna with St Simeon and other saints; it was described by

Ridolfi as ‘an excellent painting’.47 Such concise comments on important paintings are very

often to be found in his second group of biographies of artists, though in some cases he is

more expansive. In his life of Giovanni Bellini, Ridolfi, as in his account of Marco Basaiti,

refers to the devotional aspect of the figures of saints depicted by the artist:

He renounced the old and dry manner in favour of a smooth style with which he uniquely

imitated nature. He gave a noble purity and devoutness to the figures of the saints; for this

reason, he rightly acquired the title of the most famous artist of the previous epoch.48

Ridolfi identifies the same piety in the beautiful figures in Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece,

mentioning St Francis, who gazes affectionately at the crucifix, the nude figure of St

43 Ibid.: ‘entro nobile stanza giace in sontuoso letto Sant’Orsola dormiente’. 44 Ibid., p. 47: ‘onde vengono tuttavia ammirate da’Professori per opere gentili’. 45 Ibid.: ‘arrecando molto diletto, e essendo ripiene, come dicemmo, di prospettive, d’habiti vari, e con molta diligenza condotte’. 46 Ibid., p. 48: ‘in Venetia nella Chiesa di San Giob dipinse la Purificatione della Vergine, la quale porge al Pontefice Simeone il fanciullo, che fù dell’opere sue più perfette, e havui tre Angeletti à piedi, che suonano con molta gratia’. 47 Ibid.: ‘Un quadro eccellente di questa mano trovasi il signor Vivian Viviani Medico celebratissimo in Venetia, e chiarissimo scrittore il quale, oltre le singolari opere date alle stampe ha composto un celebre trattato del custodire la sanità, evvi in quello Nostra Donna, San Simeone e altri santi.’ 48 Ibid., p. 47: ‘Egli ridusse la maniera usata per l’addietro, che teneva del secco, ad un più esquisito, e soave utile, col quale unicamente imitò la Natura: arrecando alle Imagine de’ Santi certa nobile purità, e divotione, onde con ragione ottiene il titolo di celeberrimo tra gli scorsi Pittori’; see also K. Christiansen, ‘Giovanni Bellini and the Practice of Devotional Painting’, in Giovanni Bellini and the Art of Devotion, Indianapolis 2004, pp. 7-57, for a discussion of the motives that lie behind the application of the label of ‘religious artist’ to fifteenth-century painters and especially to Giovanni Bellini.

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Sebastian and the three graceful angels playing music – all of which indicate that Ridolfi

admired the painting.49

At the beginning of his biography of Bellini, Ridolfi states that he chose to include

only those works of art which he thought were the most noteworthy.50 He referred to

paintings executed both in Venice and elsewhere, whether public or private commissions.

Neither Vasari nor Sansovino mentioned as many private commissions of Bellini as

Ridolfi,51 which suggests that he was keen to provide a well-documented account of the life

of a painter who interested him. Another early artist whom he greatly appreciated was

Andrea Mantegna. According to Ridolfi, in spite of Mantegna’s ‘somewhat hard style’, his

works were given due consideration in his own time and were also a source of inspiration

for artists of the following periods.52

A striking feature of Ridolfi’s book is that for a number of the paintings, churches

and writers which he discussed he gave notes in the margins, providing us with information

about his sources,53 some of which were written accounts. For instance, the material on

Paduan artists, presented in his biography of Andrea Mantegna, was based, he tells us, on

Bernardo Scardeone’s De antiquitate urbis Patavii of 1550. This Latin work was a celebration

of the city of Padua and its illustrious citizens; and it contained a small section on Paduan

painters from Giusto de’ Menabuoi to Domenico Compagnola.54 Ridolfi presented an

Italian equivalent of Scardeone’s Latin text, preserving most of the content and retaining

the order in which the artists were discussed. This shows that his aim was to give as much

information as possible on the artists mentioned in his book. For Venice, he resorted to

Sansovino, as well as relying on his own first-hand observations.

How diligent Ridolfi was in his selection of artists and, more importantly, of their

works, and how reliable his accounts are, remains to be investigated.55 Some of his

49 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 66: ‘San Francesco, che mira con molto affetto la Croce; San Sebastiano ignudo...e la bellezza di tre Angeletti’. 50 Ibid., p. 64: ‘ridurremo alla narration di quelle, che più note, e famose sono’. 51 E.g., Ridolfi lists the paintings which Bellini made for various patrons in Venice, Antwerp and Rome. 52 Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 90: ‘Le opere di questo autore furono molto apprezzate nel tempo suo, e tuttavia si conservano negli studi per memorie degne; e benchè ritenghino qualche durezza, non havendossi in que’ tempi lume maggiore, non dimeno sono condote di venustà.’ 53 E.g., Sallust, De bello Iugurthino, Valerius Maximus, Dictorum et factorum memorabilium libri novem, Venice 1502, Scardeone, De antiquitate and Sabellico, Dell’historia vinitiana, Venice 1558. For a complete list of authors cited by Ridolfi, see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, pp. XXII-XXIII. 54 Scardeone, De antiquitate, pp. 370-4. 55 On this matter, but with reference to modern artists, see A. Carroll, ‘On the Credibility of Carlo Ridolfi’s ‘‘Lives of the Venetian Painters’’’, Australian Journal of Art, 2, 1980, pp. 51-62.

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attributions of paintings, as we have seen, need to be treated cautiously, since, as we have

seen, he did not record inscriptions on paintings. Nevertheless, when he gives especially

thorough descriptions, this clearly tells us something about his preferences, as well as his

method of drawing attention to particular works of art. That the book was dedicated to the

Reynst brothers, two Dutch collectors was, as Francis Haskell noted,56 part of Ridolfi’s

strategy to promote Venetian art abroad and, indirectly, to encourage foreign collectors to

acquire Venetian paintings. Haskell also suggested that the increase in purchases of

Venetian paintings (whether early or modern) on the art market after 1648 was, to some

extent, the result of the publication of Ridolfi’s book and its influence.57

Ridolfi’s collection of drawings, now held in the library of Christ Church, Oxford,

gives us a deeper insight into his taste for artists of previous generations.58 Even though the

collection was primarily of mannerist artists, it still included a significant group of drawings

by earlier Venetian artists, whom he also praised in his biographies, including Andrea

Mantegna, Vincenzo Catena, Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio.59

Ridolfi provided his readers with an important source of information about early

Italian works of art which he had seen first-hand and which he described in great detail,

expressing particular admiration for religious images such as those by Basaiti and Giovanni

Bellini. He also cited the written sources which he had consulted, including Vasari’s Lives,

to which he often referred in a critical manner,60 and Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima,

56 F. Haskell, ‘La sfortuna critica di Giorgione’, in Giorgione e l’umanesimo veneziano, ed. R. Pallucchini, 2 vols, Florence 1981, II, pp. 583-614, at p. 592. 57 Ibid. 58 For Ridolfi’s collection of drawings, see M. Muraro, ‘Di Carlo Ridolfi e di altre “fonti” per lo studio del disegno veneto del Seicento’, in Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf, ed. A. Kosegarten and P. Tigler, 2 vols, Berlin 1968, I, pp. 429-33; C. F. Bell, Drawings by the Old Masters in the Library of Christ Church Oxford, Oxford 1914, pp. 20-2. Ridolfi’s drawings were originally grouped in three small volumes entitled Libro A (74 drawings), Libro B (73 drawings) and Libro G (45 drawings). Although he does not refer to this collection in Le meraviglie dell’arte, he does encourage the study of drawing; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, II, p. 241: ‘Da quello [disegno] dipende tutta la perfettione della pittura.’ A precedent for Ridolfi’s collection of drawings is the much larger one of Vasari, which he grouped under the title of Libro de’ disegni and which he often mentions in Le vite. It comprised drawings from the Trecento, Quattrocento and Cinquecento, and it was meant to illustrate the history of Italian art from Cimabue to Vasari’s own day. For further information, see O. Kurz, ‘Il “Libro de’ disegni” di Giorgio Vasari’, in Studi vasariani: atti del convegno internazionale per il IV centenario della prima edizione delle ‘Vite’ del Vasari, Florence 1952, pp. 225-8; O. Kurz, ‘Giorgio Vasari’s ‘‘Libro de’ disegni’’, Old Master Drawings, 45-47, 1937, pp. 1-15 and 32-44; and L. Ragghianti Collobi, Il Libro de’ disegni del Vasari, 2 vols, Florence 1974. 59 For a complete list of Ridolfi’s drawings, see Bell, Drawings, pp. 25-93; see also S. Mason, ‘Dallo studiolo al ‘‘camaron’’ dei quadri. Un itinerario per dipinti, disegni, stampe e qualche curiosità nelle collezioni della Venezia barocca’, in Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Seicento, ed. L. Borean and Mason, Venice 2008, pp. 3-37, at p. 31. 60 E.g., in the lives of Gentile da Fabriano and Vittore Pisanello, Ridolfi points out that Vasari failed to record their works in Venice: see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 23: ‘Benche il Vasari di questi due pittori habbia à lungo

56

probably the first edition, though Ridolfi added a considerable number of works of art,

both before and after 1550, not documented by Sansovino. Moreover, while Sansovino’s

work was a guidebook to Venice, with a strongly historical orientation, Ridolfi, a painter

himself, wrote biographies of painters who had been active in Venice, in which the focus,

inevitably, was on art.

descritte le vite e le opere, nondimeno non fà punto mentione di quelle cose, che dipinsero in Venetia.’ See also ibid., p. 31.

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CHAPTER 3

Marco Boschini’s Writings

‘Upon a comparison of Ridolfi’s style of writing with that of Boschini, we might suppose

that these authors flourished at two different epochs, though they were nearly

contemporary.’1 This observation by Luigi Lanzi prompts us to consider those elements in

the writing style and approach of the two authors which seem to divide them. Even though

Ridolfi and Boschini were very well acquainted with the Venetian art world since they were

both painters (Boschini was also an art dealer in Venetian art); however, they are best

known today for their writings on Venetian art in which they expressed their artistic views. 2

They wrote in different genres: while Ridolfi opted for the narrative style of biographies,

Boschini favoured the brief and precise accounts appropriate for a guidebook, as well as the

encomiastic and satirical tone of the didactic poem.

La carta del navegar pittoresco (1660)

In 1660, Marco Boschini published La carta del navegar pittoresco, a eulogy of Venetian

painting in the form of a poem in the dialect of Venice.3 Boschini’s decision to write this

work in dialect provoked a number of criticisms in his day. Bellori, for instance, when

discussing Raphael and his critics in the life of Carlo Maratta, directed a sarcastic remark

against Boschini, describing him ‘twisting his head and singing in his distorted language’, an

1 L. Lanzi, The History of Painting in Italy: From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century, ed. T. Roscoe, 3 vols, London 1847, II, p. 254; see also Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia, ed. M. Capucci, 3 vols, Florence 1968-1974, II, p. 135: ‘chi paragon lo scrivere del Ridolfi con quello del Boschini, gli crederebbe vivuti in due secoli differenti benche fosser quasi coetanei’. 2 Boschini states in the ‘Breve instruzione’, in his Le ricche minere, Venice 1674, that he was a pupil of Palma il Giovane. He also studied under Odoardo Fialetti, whose paintings were in the style of Tintoretto. Unfortunately, none of Boschini’s paintings has survived. For an account of his paintings, see Sansovino/Martinioni, ‘Quinto catalogo de gli pittori di nome, che al presente vivono in Venetia’, in Venetia, pp. 22-3. In addition to his activity as painter, Boschini also trained as printmaker, restorer and draughtsman A number of prints and a map of Venice testify to his interest in learning and applying various artistic techniques. For further information about Boschini’s artistic legacy and a complete list of his extant and lost works, see M. F. Merling, Marco Boschini’s ‘‘La carta del navegar pittoresco’’: Art Theory and Virtuoso Culture in Seventeenth-Century Venice, Ann Arbor 1992, pp. 31-56 and 344-89. 3 For a summary of the content of the Carta, see Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 548, and also Boschini, La carta del navegar pittoresco, ed. A. Pallucchini, Venice 1966, pp. XVIII-XXIX.

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obvious reference to the unconventional vocabulary of the Carta.4 Similarly, but in a less

strident tone, the Florentine Paolo del Sera maintained that the publication of Boschini’s

poem in Venetian dialect hindered foreigners like himself from enjoying and understanding

the nuances of the book.5 Didactic poems, whether or not they were devoted exclusively to

artistic matters, were popular during the seventeenth century: Giambattista Marino’s La

Galleria (1619), Giulio Cesare Bona’s Miserie del Mondo (1658), Agostino Coltellini’s

Instituzioni del corpo umano (1660) and Francesco Redi’s Bacco in Toscana (1685) are just a few

Italian examples of the genre.6

Even though Boschini’s poem may not have had as many readers as his later work,

the much shorter Le Minere della pittura veneziana, and may have earned him a reputation as

an unorthodox writer because of the satirical notes and the use of Venetian dialect, the

content of his Carta reveals interesting and influential views on the art of earlier

generations. Boschini’s tribute to the Venetian school of painting was largely, but not

exclusively, concerned with artists after Giorgione whose works were displayed either in the

churches of Venice or in various private collections such as that of Archduke Leopold

Wilhelm (to whom the poem is dedicated). Boschini’s belief in the pre-eminence of the

Venetian school caused him to react against Vasari. In contrasting Raphael and Giovanni

Bellini, for instance, he confidently rejected Vasari’s preference for Raphael and

championed Bellini.7 Indeed, he placed Bellini at the summit of his ranking of painters,

backing up this choice by giving especially high praise to the artist’s San Giobbe altarpiece.8

Although Boschini’s extended description reads like a literary exercise (the vocabulary he

uses invites such an appraisal), one can still identify a number of elements which show his

wide-ranging artistic knowledge and his appreciation for specific aspects of the painting.

Particular attention is paid to the beautiful arrangement of the figures within the

4 Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, ed. E. Borea, Turin 1976, p. 627: ‘distorcendo la testa e cantando il suo linguaggio distorto’. 5 L. Procacci and U. Procacci, ‘Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici’, Saggi e Memorie, 4, 1965, pp. 87-113, at p. 111: ‘ma veramente bisognerebbe farselo leggere da un venetiano nativo, perchè molte cose noi altri non le possiamo, diro strapallar con quella gentilezza con che le trinciano i venetiani’. 6 See Merling, Marco Boschini, pp. 184-5; on didactic poetry, see A. Harder, A. A. MacDonald and G. J. Reinink, eds, Calliope’s Classroom: Studies in Didactic Poetry from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Leuven and Paris 2007. 7 Boschini, La carta, p. 46: ‘È però per responder al Vasari,/Che porta in sete Cieli Rafael,/Dirò, che doto più fusse el penel/De Zambelin: sti sentimenti è chiari.’ 8 Ibid., pp. 28-9: ‘Zambelin fu sì doto e valente,/Che’l se puol ben chiamar Pitor di cima;/Tal in San Giopo el

so valor se stima,/Dove un’opera gh’è, molto ecelente./Prima se vede in bela maestà/La Madre col Bambin; forma sì dota/Non fu mai vista, o idea cusì devota;/Se puol ben dir: l’è una divinità!’

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composition: the humble and pious expressions of Francis and Job in meditation, which

prompt viewers to devotion, and the solemn posture and finely rendered flesh tones of St

Sebastian.9 No previous account of Bellini’s painting contains a description which goes into

such detail about every figure, finding in each of them a characteristic to admire. Boschini’s

descriptions of works by Vittore Carpaccio and Marco Basaiti reflect a similar approach. He

considered Carpaccio to be a painter ‘as exquisite in style as’ Giovanni Bellini and expressed

admiration for his painting of The Presentation of Christ at the Temple in San Giobbe, which he

said was executed carefully, with the figures beautifully rendered, displaying pious attitudes

and depicted in noble clothing.10 In the same church, Boschini praised a painting by Marco

Basaiti, which he described as ‘beautiful, charming and diligent, with all the figures well

rendered’.11

In addition to expressing his views on paintings of the past, Boschini also raised

issues of contemporary concern. The fictional dialogue between the Venetian senator

‘Eccelenza’ and the painter ‘Compare’, includes, for example, the following exchange, in

which Eccelenza asks: ‘What is new in the field of painting? I know that you have had

experience with all the painters and have had many conversations with them about this

profession. What are they interested in? What are the foreigners buying, looking for and

demanding’?12 Compare’s responses reveal information not previously found in the artistic

literature of Boschini’s day: that foreigners were interested in acquiring Venetian paintings,

that Quattrocento art tended to become more valuable and, therefore, more expensive as

the years passed, and that the export of such art was a grave loss for Venice’s patrimony,

due primarily to the ignorance of local dilettanti. These sharp observations showed that, in

Boschini’s opinion, Venetian collectors underestimated the art produced in their city and

that it was essential for them to have someone knowledgeable, ideally a painter, to help

shape their taste and to give them advice about buying paintings.13

9 Boschini, La carta, p. 29: ‘san Francesco, che pietoso/ fa mostra del costato ai Reguardanti./San Giope star se osserva in oracion, Tuto devoto, e umile, e modesto;/.../San Bastian, martire degno; E chi no vede quela positura/ Non ha vista dasseno una figura: la xe de carne; l’è tuta dessegno.’ 10 Ibid., p. 34: ‘El Carpaccio xe stà cusì esquisito.’ 11 Ibid., p. 36: ‘L’è tuta bela, vaga e diligente;/Xe tute le figure ben intese.’ 12 Ibid., p. 21: ‘che cosa gh’è da niovo in la pitura? So che vù partiche tuti i Pitori./E diversi discorsi avè con lori/Sora sta profession per aventura. Ghe xe curiosità? Ghe’ è forestieri, che compra, che recerca, che domanda?’; see Philip Sohm, Pittoresco. Marco Boschini, His Critics, and Their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy, Cambridge 1991, p. 89 and n. 6. 13 Boschini, La carta, p. 23: ‘Fin che i particulari xe sta mati,/ E che molti ha vendù quei gran tesori.’ Boschini’s remark is directed at collectors who have not sought artistic advice.

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Le minere della pittura veneziana (1664) and Contemporary Texts on Painting

A year after the publication of the third edition of Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima, a new

guide to Venice, specifically devoted to painting, became available to the public: Marco

Boschini’s Le minere della pittura veneziana (1664). Perhaps influenced by his own interest and

training as a painter, but also by practical considerations (a guide to paintings was more

likely to appeal to a wide readership and, consequently, to sell better), Boschini provided a

careful record of the paintings in Venice from 1314 to his own time. According to Paolo

del Sera, the Florentine art collector, dealer and adviser to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, in a

letter of 1663 addressed to the archduke, Boschini was a worthy and honourable virtuoso,

who had written his guidebook for his own entertainment and so that the art lovers could

become familiar with the most famous painters in Venice. In the same letter, del Sera also

recognized the unique character of Boschini’s guidebook, in that it recorded only paintings,

which, according to him, was a ‘cosa non più stata fata’.14 Previous local literature was

generally in the form of detailed writings which contained various sections covering

topography, historiography and biographies of famous people.15 Boschini’s specialized

guide proved to be popular; and, in line with an established practice of producing new

editions of successful works, it was followed by later enlarged versions in 1674 and 1773.16

The increase in this type of literature, together with the reprinting of original

editions, suggests an attempt to build, maintain and expand a tradition of works promoting

various aspects of Venetian culture by continually updating the information, in response to

an evident demand on the part of the reading public.17 Other contemporary examples

include Francesco Scannelli’s Il microcosmo della pittura,18 Giacomo Barri’sViaggio pittoresco19

14 Boschini’s publication is recorded in a letter addressed to Leopoldo de’ Medici by del Sera; Procacci and

Procacci, ‘Carteggio’, p. 112: ‘Quel virtuoso tanto degno et honorato, che compose et fece stampare la Carta del Navicar Pittoresco, dico il Sig. Marco Boschini, ha fatto stampare adesso per sua ricreatione e per informatione de dilettanti di pittura un indice di tutte le pitture pubbliche che sono in questa città, cosa non più stata fatta; per il che io ho preso ardire d’inviarne uno a V. A. S. la quale da esso potrà vedere di mano in mano dove sono le opera de più celebri pittori, e se si degnerà d’honorarmi di un esemplare del libro della diretione de fiumi, io lo porgerò a detto sig. Boschini, che è molto curioso’; see also Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 548-9. 15 Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 559-64. 16 See, e.g., Sansovino, Tutte le cose notabili, Venice 1556, 1564, 1601, 1606, and Venetia città nobilissima, Venice 1581, 1604, 1663. The final version of Le ricche minere was edited by Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger under the title of Descrizione di tutte le pubbliche pitture della città di Venetia, Venice 1771. 17 As we shall see, the publication of the second edition of Le ricche minere was the result of such popular demand. 18 Francesco Scanelli, Il microcosmo della pittura overo trattato diviso in due libri, Cesena 1657.

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and Luigi Scaramuccia’s Le finezze de’ penelli.20 Although they belong to different genres (the

first is an art treatise, the second a guidebook and the third an artistic dialogue), all three

texts focus exclusively on painting. Instead, however, of presenting works of art from one

Italian city only, the writers of these works discuss paintings from all over Italy. In the

section of his ‘Italian voyage’ dedicated to Venetian painting, Giacomo Barri guides

travellers through the sestieri, pointing out the principal attractions. Rather surprisingly, he

only mentions works by artists from Giorgione to Pietro da Cortona, leaving out all the

earlier ones. For the foreign travellers who were unfamiliar with Venetian art, the missing

elements from Barri’s guidebook might not have been significant; but for those who were

familiar with the writings of Sansovino, Ridolfi and Boschini, omitting paintings by artists

such as the Vivarini, the Bellini, Carpaccio and Marco Basaiti would presumably have

seemed odd, since they were always mentioned and admired in these written accounts. Barri

adopts a similar pattern when discussing Florence, mentioning only works by artists from

Andrea del Sarto to Agostino Carracci, and Bologna, including paintings by later artists

such as the Carracci, Domenichino, Parmigianino, Guido Reni and Francesco Albani. Nor

was Barri the only writer to follow this path: Scaramuccia applied the same principles in his

dialogue on art. On their journey through Italy, the two interlocutors, Girupeno and

Raffaello, stop to admire the churches of Venice under the guidance of Boschini’s La carta

and Le minere.21 Again, the emphasis is on paintings by later artists (from Titian onwards),22

who are highly praised, while the earlier ones are omitted, with the exception of works by

Giovanni Bellini.23

Like Barri, Scaramuccia does not say why he neglects earlier artists. One possible

reason in both cases is that these authors do not attempt to explain the origins of Italian

19 Giacomo Barri, Viaggio pittoresco in cui si notano distintamente tutte le pitture famose...che si conservano in qualsivoglia città dell’Italia, Venice 1671. Barri’s guidebook was translated into English under the title: The Painters Voyage of Italy in which All the Famous Paintings of the Most Eminent Masters are Particularised, as They are Preserved in the Several Cities of Italy, London 1679. 20 Luigi Scaramuccia, Le finezze de’ penelli italiani ammirate e studiate da Girupeno sotto la scorta e disciplina del genio di Raffaello d’Urbino, Pavia 1674. 21 Ibid., p. 97: ‘Che io nel mio Libro della Carta del Navigare m’ingegno far credere essere il più bel quadro di Venetia’; and p. 110: ‘il che inteso dal Boschini molto resto sodisfatto, e volle, che per loro maggior istruttione s’accompagnassero del suo Libretto, poco anzi posto alle Stampe sotto il titolo delle Minere della Pittura, nel quale come havrebbero potuto osservare si era da esso diligentemente fatta mentione di tutto ciò che di Pittura in Venetia.’ 22 Scaramuccia follows the same pattern for Florence and for other cities. 23 Scaramuccia records paintings by Giovanni Bellini, the only Venetian painter discussed in this section, in San Francesco della Vigna (Scaramuccia, Le finezze de’ penelli, p. 96), San Pietro Martire (ibid., p. 98), Santa Maria della Salute (ibid., p. 102), Santa Maria della Carità (ibid., p. 103) and Madonna dell’Orto (ibid., p. 108).

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painting. Dealing with paintings from all over Italy, they do not indulge in campanilismo, and

their purpose was not to illustrate the development of Italian painting in particular cities,

but instead to offer travellers some guidance by pointing out the more recent works of art

which they should look out for on their journey. Furthermore, Barri and Scaramuccia

appear to have been more interested in discussing a large number of cities and churches

than in revealing their own preferences for particular paintings. Writing general guidebooks

to Italy, they mostly recommended more recent works of art, while travellers who wanted

to find out about a specific city would consult more specialized guidebooks which were

more likely to include earlier works of art and which, occasionally, offered more insightful

analyses of the paintings. So far, it seems that attitudes towards early Renaissance paintings

did not develop in a uniform manner: there were surprising changes from one text to

another, depending on the type of writing and to whom it is addressed.

Returning to Boschini’s guidebook Le minere, we notice a different approach from

the works of Barri and Scaramuccia, with more attention devoted to earlier paintings.

Before Boschini, the nature of guidebooks usually constrained authors such as Sansovino to

make only laconic and general assessments of works of art, as opposed to the detailed and

specific comments found in his Carta.24 What distinguishes Boschini’s Le minere from

Sansovino’s guidebooks and even from Ridolfi’s biographies is that he not only added a

considerable number works of art which were previously unmentioned, but also showed

more interest in expressing his own views on Venetian art. Recording works of art

displayed publicly in Venetian churches, which he grouped geographically, he, for instance,

said about some anonymous paintings of stories from the life of Christ and the Virgin in

the Scuola dell’Annonciata, dating from 1314, that, in his opinion the reason these paintings

were worthy of admiration, even though they were not necessarily ‘exceptional’, was

because of their ‘antiquity’.25 This observation indicates, on the one hand, Boschini’s

awareness of a caesura between older and more recent art, and, on the other, his belief that

an ‘ancient’ work of art, that is, one from the early Trecento, deserved consideration and

appreciation in itself, regardless of its beauty. Moreover, Boschini’s comments were likely to

24 As has been shown, the main purpose of the guidebooks was to record the most important works of art in a particular city. Additional comments on paintings are not always present. Sansovino’s book contains only a few modest references in comparison to those offered by Ridolfi and Boschini. 25 Boschini, Le minere della pittura veneziana, Venice 1664, p. 470: ‘Nella detta scuola, per l’antichità delle pitture benchè non siano di molta rarità, essendo fatte dell’anno 1314 sono degne di ammirazione.’

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help his readership to acquire a sense of the past and to become aware of stylistic

developments. By consulting his guide, a traveller would be able to place works of art

within their appropriate time period and to understand, for example, that an older painting

had specific attributes which made it different from later works.

There is an intriguing, observation by Luigi Lanzi, who not only disapproved of

Boschini’s local patriotism but also criticized him for not being able to distinguish

adequately between past and present painters:

[His misguided patriotism is the source of his calumnies against Vasari and against the

methods of the foreign schools, as well as his exaggerated praise for Venetian painters...

Even worse, he does not make any distinction] between the good old masters and the

mannerists of his own time and speaks of them as if they were still alive and teaching the

masters of the previous century, or as if the moderns had the same gifts and resources.26

In analysing Lanzi’s remark, it is essential to understand what he actually meant by

‘distinction’ and what might have led him to react in this way. As we have seen, Boschini

had a clear idea of where to place the artists of the past in relation to those of the present.

Although the vocabulary tinged with culinary resonances which he employed in the Carta

might have seemed inappropriate for art criticism,27 what appears to have struck Lanzi was

that Boschini referred to artists from different generations with the same degree of

enthusiasm. Ironically, however, Lanzi’s disapproval seemed to confer on Boschini a unique

position among Venetian art critics: as a writer who longed for the art of the past and

appreciated it as much as that of his own time. In fact, however, Boschini regarded artists

of earlier generations as part of a continuum, ‘a living tradition’.28 He believed that the

greatness of the old masters was perpetuated and perfected by later generations which

26 English translation from Lanzi, The History of Painting, II, p. 237, with my alterations between square brackets. Lanzi, Storia pittorica, II, p. 123: ‘da questo non beninteso patriottismo procedono in lui e le maldicenze contro il Vasari e contro i metodi delle scuole forestiere; e l’esagerate lodi de’ pittori veneti... Il peggio è che non fa differenza da’ buoni antichi a’ manieristi de’suoi tempi; e parla come se vivessero e insegnassero ancora i maestri del secolo precedente, o i moderni avessero gli stessi doni e gli stessi capitali.’ 27 For an extended analysis Boschini’s vocabulary in the Carta, see Sohm, Pittoresco, p. 117, n. 126. Boschini associates Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi with marzipan and appreciates that Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece has good seasoning. See Boschini, La carta, p. 210: ‘Che xe dal marzapan’, and p. 47: Ma el condimento de sta nobil Pala/Xe tre Anzoleti con varii istrumenti;/E par sentir quei musichi concenti;/Ogni cosa là su tutta è de gala.’ 28 Sohm, Pittoresco, p. 109.

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included painters such as Veronese and Tintoretto. This attitude would become evident in

the ‘Breve instruzione’ to his Le ricche minere, discussed below.

In writing about late Trecento and early Quattrocento artists in Le minere, Boschini

starts from Iacobello del Fiore, Donato Veneziano and the Vivarini family. There are no

references to earlier altarpieces such as those by Paolo and Lorenzo Veneziano.29 Nor does

Boschini mention the early Paduan artists Guariento and Nicoletto Semitecolo, whose

activity in Venice was recorded by Sansovino and Ridolfi. It seems that these omissions are

the result of his belief that Venetian art began with Bellini and that, therefore, he did not

need to dwell on earlier artists.30

Boschini’s comments on Quattrocento painters were often quite brief, though he

did give a precise indication of the location of each work and of the figures it contained.

For instance, in referring to Donato Veneziano’s Crucifixion in San Nicolo de’ Frari, he

informs us that it was in the refectory and portrayed Christ on the cross, the Virgin, Mary

Magdalene and three saints, adding that in the background there was ‘a beautiful

landscape’.31 With even greater brevity, Luigi Vivarini’s St Jerome is said to be a ‘rare work’.32

Le minere does not abound in rich descriptions of earlier works of art; however, it has the

merit of including a number of paintings which had not previously been recorded. This

suggests that Boschini carried out most of his research independently, documenting as

many paintings as possible and, occasionally, expressing his own views on their quality. The

two artists whose works he seemed to appreciate most were Vittore Carpaccio and, above

all, Giovanni Bellini. Carpaccio’s St Vitalis and The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand are both

described as ‘exceptional’, while the stories of the life of St Ursula are said to be a ‘treasure

of perfection’.33 In discussing Bellini’s works, Boschini generally uses the term ‘beautiful’:

29 Sansovino and Ridolfi also omit them. Zanetti is the only writer to dedicate a section to painters before 1300 and to mention Lorenzo and Paolo Veneziano. See Zanetti, Della pittura, pp. 11, 15, 16. 30 See Marco Boschini, I gioielli pittoreschi, Venice 1676, p. 24. 31 Boschini, Le minere, p. 316: ‘Nel Capitolo de detti Padri, una Tavola con nostro Signore in Croce, la Beata Vergine, Santa Maria Maddalena, San Giovanni, San Francesco, San Bernardino, e un bel paese, di mano di Donato Veneziano.’ Boschini’s reference to the ‘beautiful landscape’ does not necessarily indicate artistic appreciation; it could serve merely as indicator enabling visitors to identify the painting without difficulty. 32Ibid., p. 462: ‘opera rara di Luigi Vivarino’. 33 Ibid., p. 162: ‘cosa rara’, and p. 213: ‘un Tesoro di perfezione’. The latter phrase is not used elsewhere by Boschini, nor is it found in other Venetian writers on art examined in this dissertation.

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for instance, he writes that The Virgin and the Child in Santa Maria Maggiore is among

Bellini’s ‘beautiful’ works.34

In Le minere Boschini did not employ the variety of terms which he had used in the

Carta; and there are a number of words which crop up frequently such as ‘exceptional’,

‘beautiful’, ‘rare’ and ‘precious’,35 which are morely likely to reflect stereotyped judgements

than his own personal taste. That Boschini, Sansovino and Ridolfi tended to admire the

same painters – the Vivarini, the Bellini, Carpaccio and Cima – indicates, firstly, that there

was a tradition among Venetian writers on art of appreciation for these artists, which would

presumably have helped readers to differentiate their styles and to associate them with

specific attributes, and, secondly, that preferences for these artists remained largely

unchanged over a long period of time.

Looking at Art through Marco Boschini’s Glass Panel: Le ricche minere della

pittura veneziana (1674)

In a letter of 18 August 1674, Boschini asked Archduke Leopold Wilhelm to accept his

second and enlarged edition of Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana as a gift.36 The edition

was published the same year, and the additional material consisted of a preface entitled

‘Breve instruzione’ and new accounts of works of art which had been omitted from the

1664 edition. At the beginning of the ‘Breve instruzione’, Boschini informed readers that all

copies of the first edition had sold out; and, in response to demand from art lovers, he had

decided to reprint and update the book by adding new paintings.37 Furthermore, he had

34 Ibid., p. 365: ‘un’altro con Maria, il bambino e molti cherubini, che la circonda, delle belle di Giovanni Bellini’. 35 Boschini uses the phrase ‘opera rara’ four times with reference to Luigi Vivarini, Giovanni Buonconsiglio, Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini and Giovanni Buonconsiglio. ‘Bellissima’ or ‘bello’ appear six times in connection with Donato Veneziano, Benedetto Diana, Giovanni Buonconsiglio and Giovanni Bellini. The works of Carpaccio and the Bellini are described as ‘precious’. 36 Procacci and Procacci, ‘Carteggio’, p. 91: ‘hora pure resta da me supplicare di benignamente aggradire questa mia seconda impressione delle Ricche minere della Pittura veneziana, con nove aggiunte’. 37 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. A1r: ‘mentre ho veduto che con brevità di tempo si sono smaltite tutte le coppie stampate: onde in mancanza di esse altre novamente me ne havete richieste; ed io pure a questo effetto ho ristampate le presenti, con l’aggiunta di quelle pitture, che sono state accresciute da molti virtuosi’.

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been asked by readers for more artistic advice and wanted to satisfy these requests.38 It is,

therefore, worth examining the preface in some detail, since it tells us more about

Boschini’s practical advice and his appreciation of art than the first edition.

After explaining why he had added a preface, Boschini introduces a general

discussion about judging paintings. He constructs his argument starting from two premises.

First, in order to give an expert opinion on art, one has to have a clear idea of the

difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ painting. Second, the viewer has to become familiar

with the style of artists.39 In Boschini’s opinion, it is a natural inclination which allows one

to determine if a painting is good or bad, a faculty which immediately detects the sources of

visual delight. But in order to make the right choice regarding the quality of a painting,

additional practical knowledge is required. Although Boschini was interested in providing

his readers with a set of criteria for assessing paintings accurately, he believed that only

painters had the necessary first-hand experience to judge art. Amateur art-lovers should,

therefore, let themselves be guided by someone with expertise such as himself.40 There

were, he explained, two ways of looking at art, one from the intendente’s point of view, the

other from the dilettante’s perspective:

Let us say that there is a pane of glass between the intendente and the dilettante and that the

intendente is sitting at a table with the most extraordinary foods, which he can eat according

to his own choice; and, on the other hand, the dilettante also desires to eat the same

delicacies. Since he is not able to penetrate the pane of glass, he can only glance at these

foods and ask the other person if they are good and nourishing. While the former, who

enjoys possession of them, responds affirmatively, the latter, on the outside, not being able

to eat them because of the obstruction, has to feed on his answer, which only satisfies the

sight and hearing superficially, but does not provide inner nourishment.41

38 Ibid.: ‘Restami hora da sodisfarvi in nuova cosa, che mi ha chieduto alcuno di voi, cioè che io vi mostri il modo di pratticar le maniere gli auttori, e distinguer l’una dall’altra.’ 39Ibid, sig. A1v: ‘Dirò nondimeno che due cose, in questo caso, son necessarie: la prima, che è la più essenziale, è il sa per intender il buono, e distinguerlo dal non buono, la seconda è il conoscere il carattere de gli Autori, cioè a dire la maniera dell’operare.’ 40 Paolo del Sera, for instance, characterized Boschini as a ‘huomo intendente di pittura’; see Procacci and Procacci, ‘Carteggio’, p. 113. 41 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. D8r: ‘Ma siami concesso il dire, che trà l’Intendente e il Dilettante vi sia un Cristallo di mezzo, e sia l’Intendente ad una mensa imbandita di preziose vivande, de quali à suo arbitrio, si vada nutrendo; ed all’incontro il Dilettante habbia egli ancora desiderio di cibarsi delle stesse lautezze: ma non potendo penetrar quel Cristallo, vada con l’occhio osservandole, e con la voce interogando l’altro se son buone, e sostanziose, e quello, che ne gode il dominio risponda che si: dove quel di fuori non

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In applying this metaphor to the analysis of works of art,42 Boschini was suggesting that

practical knowledge was a prerequisite for a sound assessment of paintings. Having such an

artistic background, in his opinion, exerted a powerful influence on one’s understanding

and appreciation of paintings; and, the preface was meant, as its title indicated, to instruct

art lovers on how to distinguish between the styles of various Venetian painters by giving

them the benefit of his wisdom and professional experience. Boschini does not state

explicitly whether by reading his guidebook art lovers could achieve the same level of

knowledge and experience as the intendenti and penetrate the glass pane in order to enjoy the

‘delicacies’ fully. Nevertheless, the purpose of the guidebook was to take them a step

further – from a state of superficiality and ignorance to in-depth knowledge – and help

them to formulate clearer and more accurate judgements on art.

In the ‘Breve instruzione’ Boschini also provided a list of the most significant

writers on art from other towns in Italy including Gian Paolo Lomazzo (Milan), Giorgio

Vasari (Florence), Francesco Scanelli (Lombardy), Lodovico Vedriani (Modena), Giovanni

Baglione (Rome), Carlo Cesare Malvasia (Bologna), Gioseffo Montani (Pesaro) and Luigi

Scaramuccia (Pavia).43 Significantly, this is the first time that an author of a Venetian

potendo per l’impendimento cibarsene, si nutre delle riferte, che solo sarollano la vista, e l’udito superficialmente, ma non li rende il nutrimento interiore.’ 42 In his Della pittura, Leon Battista Alberti employs similar metaphors, involving a pane of glass and a transparent veil. But while Alberti refers to the way in which the artist should construct a painting in perspective, Boschini instead considers the viewers’ experience; see Alberti, ‘Della pittura’, in Il Nuovo De pictura di Leon Battista Alberti. The New De Pictura of Leon Battista Alberti, ed. R. Sinisgalli, Rome 2011, pp. 127-8: ‘Non altrimenti che se questa superficie che ei cuoprono di colori, fosse quasi che di vetro o di altra cosa simile trasparente, tal che per essa passasse tutta la piramide visiva a vedere i veri corpi, con intervallo determinato e fermo, e con ferma positura del raggio centrico, e de’ lumi posti in aria lontani a lor luoghi, e che questo sia così, lo dimostrano i Pittori, quando ei si ritirano in dietro dalla cosa che ei dipingono a considerarla da lontano, che guidati dalla natura vanno cercando in questo modo la punta di essa stessa piramide. Laonde si accorgano, che da quel luogo considerano e giudicano meglio tutte le cose’, and translation in ibid.: ‘Not otherwise than as if this [surface], which they cover with color, were completely of glass or transparent, in such a way that, having to observe real bodies, the whole visual pyramid penetrates it according to a certain distance and according to a certain disposition of the centric ray and of the light, once established the respective positions, at a distance in space. That this truly happens this way, the painters demonstrate in the moment in which they move away from what they paint and place themselves further back [from the painting] to look for the apex of this pyramid itself, Nature being [their], from where they perceive that everything is more correctly judged and measured’; see also ibid., p. 176: ‘un velo tessuto di filo sottilissimo e poco folto...che piazzo, certamente, fra l’oggetto da rappresentare e l’occhio, in modo che la piramide visiva passi attraverso le scarse densità del velo’, and translation in ibid.: ‘a veil woven of very thin tread and loosely intertwined,...,which I place, indeed, between the object to be represented and the eye, so that the visual pyramid penetrates through the thinness of the veil.’ 43 Vedriani was the author of a local guidebook on the most famous artists in Modena; see Lodovico Vedriani, Raccolta de’ pittori, scultori et architetti modonesi più celebri, Modena 1662. Montani, although known to Malvasia, was

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guidebook named other writers on art in an attempt to raise awareness of and promote

such literature.

Next, Boschini illustrated his criteria for judging paintings by giving a number of

brief profiles of Venetian artists, arranged chronologically, from Giovanni Bellini to

Giovanni Battista Zelotti. He begins with Giovanni Bellini because he laid the foundations

of good painting in Venice, and he takes Bellini’s works as a point of reference in assessing

those of later artists. Even though Bellini’s ‘excessive diligence may give the impression that

his style is rather hard and his works are lacking in softness, if compared to those of his

followers’, one can, nevertheless, observe ‘by means of his precision, the wit in the ideas,

the movement in the poses and the harmonious arrangement in the stories’.44 Boschini cites

the example of the San Giobbe altarpiece, which seems to illustrate best the excellence of

Bellini’s style: accuracy, perfect rendition of the sacred figures which inspire devotion,

harmony and attention to detail. What dilettanti should look for, therefore, when making a

stylistic analysis of Bellini’s paintings, is their precision and accuracy. No other writer

before Boschini provided such a thorough, complete and critical assessment of Bellini’s

style.

The next ‘great master of those times’ was Vittore Carpaccio.45 In Boschini’s

ranking, Carpaccio was nearly at the same level as Bellini, especially on account of the

‘marvels’ which he painted for the Scuola di Sant’Orsola.46 Boschini then referred to Cima

da Conegliano’s works, especially his painting of theVirgin with St Nicholas and St Ursula

in the church of St Jerome, which he considered one of his best and which, consequently,

raised him almost to the level of the Bellini and Carpaccio.47 Another element which

distinguished Cima’s paintings from those of his contemporaries was the way he depicted

a minor painter and writer of the lives of the painters from Pesaro; see Perini, ‘Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters’, p. 278, and esp. n. 46. 44 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. A4v: ‘Vero è, che questa sopprabbondante diligenza ha causato, che col paragon dell’opera de suoi derivanti, paiono un poco durette, e manco morbide: ma in ogni modo con l’accuratezza sua, vi si vede lo spirito nelle Idee, il moto ne gli attegiamenti, e l’armonioso concerto nelle Historie.’ 45 Ibid., sig. B1r: ‘gran Maestro de quei tempi’. 46 Ibid.: ‘nella Scola di Sant’Orsola ha fatto maraviglie’. 47 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. B1r: ‘è stato egli ancora Pittore appunto di Cima (come si suol dire) e assai consimile a questi suoi Contemporanei; come si può vedere: e in particolare nella Tavola alla sinistra dell’Altar Maggiore di San Girolamo’.

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the ‘delightful’ landscape of his hometown.48 In assessing works of art, Boschini thus

tended to make comparisons and to rank artists according to their quality.

The last group of early painters, listed only briefly by Boschini, included Marco

Basaiti, Benedetto Diana, Giovanni Buonconsigli, Lazaro Sebastiani, Cristoforo Parmese,

Vittore Belliniano, Girolamo Santa Croce and the Vivarini. According to Boschini, they all

painted in a similar manner. Even though there were not appreciable changes from one

artist’s style to the other, it was possible to tell them apart by their signatures.49 It is here

that Boschini gives an explicit indication of his principal method of recording works of art

and, at the same time, provides the viewers with advice to follow when attempting

attributions: always look for the signature.

Boschini’s introductory accounts of early artists are conventional and still largely

influenced by previous writings in terms of his examples of works of art and the specific

qualities of an artist or a painting which he regards as praiseworthy (for example, both

Sansovino and Ridolfi discuss the particularities of Cima’s landscapes and consider his

painting in St Jerome as one of his most esteemed works).50 Nevertheless, Boschini seems

to bring the discussion to a different level, with more emphasis on the practical aspects of

painting and a more careful assessment of the works of art from multiple perspectives.

Discussing later artists, he draws attention especially to Giorgione, Titian, Veronese

and Tintoretto, to all of whom he gives high praise. He compares, for instance, Giorgione’s

contribution to painting to Gutenberg’s role in printing.51 Titian was the most excellent of

painters and, together with Veronese and Tintoretto established the future direction of

Venetian painting. Interestingly, Boschini does not seem to be especially enthusiastic about

many painters of the late sixteenth century, nor does he take much interest in those of his

48 Ibid.: ‘Di pore quasi in tutte le opera, in distanza, l’aspetto di Conegliano, sua Patria, che è un del izioso Monticello, il che serve anco per distinguerlo con tal rimarca da gli altri Autori di quei tempi.’ 49 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. B1v: ‘Tutti questi, e altri furono in un ordine di tempo, e seguirono l’un l’altro le stesse pedate: di modo che difficilmente si fà di essi la distinzione... Quello poi che molte volte facilita la distinzione è, che usavano tutti quei Pittori in ogni sua opera ò grande, ò picciola registrare il loro nome.’ 50 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, p. 176: ‘È posto in questa Chiesa, ad’un picciolo Altare un Quadro di mezze figure, con la Madonna, San Nicolò, e Santa Orsola di Gio: Battista da Conigliano, stimato per una delle migliori opera sue’, and Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, pp. 59-60: ‘nella Chiesa vicina de’ Padri di S. Maria dell’Horto dipinse la tavola di San Giovanni Battista in piedi sotto ad antica tribuna, imitando con molta accuratezza le macchie de’ marmi e le rotture, che vengono cagionate dal tempo, e dalle parti del Santo Precursore vi stanno riti li Santi Pietro e Paolo, Marco e Girolamo, e di lontano appare il Castello di Conegliano, Patria del Pittore.’ 51 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. B2r: ‘Giorgione sia stato nella Pittura un’altro Gio: Cuthembergo inventore de Caratteri di Stampe.’

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own generation (he does not mention any artists from the seventeenth century). He gives

the distinct impression that, after Tintoretto and Veronese, there was a sense of decline in

painting.52 Starting with Veronese’s followers, Boschini becomes more critical, pointing out

less praiseworthy aspects of their work. For instance, although he acknowledged Alvise dal

Friso as an excellent painter, he nevertheless thought that he was not a good colourist.53

Boschini observed that, in contrast to the older masters, the artists of his day no

longer regarded their profession as an activity which would earn them esteem but rather as

one exercised out of self interest.54 This statement reveals his nostalgic attitude towards the

art of past generations, especially the paintings of Giovanni Bellini and his contemporaries.

Boschini’s position was, however, not at all representative of the views expressed by other

writers of his day. In general, seventeenth-century artistic literature was focused on

contemporary artists. Authors such as Malvasia and Bellori were much more likely to

promote the art of their own time than to praise artists who came before the Carracci.55 It is

striking, therefore, that Boschini, who was also a painter and had acquaintances among

contemporary artists, looked to painters of the past, rather than those of his own day, as

models.56 He even mentions the Accademia of Fialleti as an example of an attempt to revive

the past by perpetuating an artistic training which would produce painters capable of

producing styles which resembled those of painters such as Titian, Giorgione, Pordenone,

Palma il Vecchio, Iacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Giovanni Battista Zelotti, Iacopo

Bassano and Giuseppe Salviati.57 In his 1676 guidebook to works of art from Verona, I

gioielli pittoreschi, Boschini also expressed great admiration for the Quattrocento artists who

worked in Vicenza, and he mentioned many paintings there by Giovanni Bellini and

52 Cf. Merling, who maintains that Boschini saw no lowering of quality from sixteenth- to seventeenth-century painting; see Merling, Marco Boschini, pp. 299 and 324. 53 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. D2r: ‘fu singular pittore, di grave, e manieroso stile, non dirò tanto vago nel colorire, ma di maniera natural’. 54 Ibid., sig. D4v: ‘l’Arte della Pittura viene al presente più esercitata per interesse, che per premura d’honore’. 55 See, e.g., Malvasia’s laudatory passages on the Carracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino and Guercino in Bologna; see Malvasia, Felsina, II, pp. 3-4: ‘Nella nobiltà, e celesti idée, come un Guido; ne gli erudite ritrovi, e nella espression de gli affetti, come un Menichino...nella forza del chiaroscuro, e nel bel scomparto de’ colori, come un Guercino.’ Bellori’s biographies of Roman and of non-Roman artists who worked in Rome also begin with Annibale Carracci; see Bellori, Le vite, pp. 31-108. 56 Boschini knew Palma il Giovane (1548/50-1628), Domenico Tintoretto (1560-1635), Gabriele Caliari (1568-1630), Pietro Liberi (1605-1687), Nicolo Renieri (1591-1667) and Pietro Vecchia (1603-1678); see Sohm, Pittoresco, p. 109. 57 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. D10r: ‘Essendo forse la più necessaria di tutte le altre per conservare, aumentare e da nuovo far rissorgere quei talenti (per così dire) smarriti di quegli Oracoli, che oggidì vengono da tutti ossequiati, dico d’un Tiziano, d’un Giorgione, d’un Pordenone, d’un Palma il Vecchio, d’un Tintoretto, d’un Paolo Veronese, d’un Zilotti, d’un Bassano, d’un Salviati, e di tanti altri.’

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Bartolomeo Montagna which he considered to be rare and precious.58 He believed that

Bellini and Montagna were among the first painters to have contributed significantly to the

development of painting in Vicenza, and he thought that their works were as valuable as

those of the modern painters.59 He also documented older works by unknown artists and

considered them worthy of praise.60

Boschini’s appreciation of the art of the past needs to be connected with his keen

interest in art preservation and conservation and with his observations on the effects of bad

restorations on painting. He is one of the first authors of a guidebook to discuss these

issues in detail. He admired works that were well preserved, like Bartolomeo Montagna’s

painting in San Bartolomeo in Vicenza, which was in such good condition that it seemed to

be a modern work.61 Equally, he pointed out paintings which were badly preserved. In a

subsection of Le ricche minere entitled ‘Distinzione di sette Maniere in certa guise consimili’,

Boschini recorded a number of paintings by Titian and Palma il Vecchio and analysed all

the areas which had suffered partial or total damage due to negligence.62 His criticism of his

contemporaries for allowing these ‘grave errors’ to happen and for not taking sufficient

measures to prevent harm coming to paintings shows Boschini’s engagement with issues

which began to concern writers, connoisseurs and collectors of the seventeenth century,

who were increasingly aware of the value of works of art from the past.63

New Additions to Le minere

The second edition of Le minere took shape against the background of the principles and

criteria set out in the ‘Breve instruzione’. These were intended as a preliminary guide for art

58 E.g., Boschini included the painting of an enthroned Madonna in Santa Corona among the precious works of Bartolomeo Montagna; see Boschini, I gioielli, p. 69: ‘opera delle rare di Bartolomeo Montagna’, and p. 72: ‘opera delle preziose di Bartolomeo Montagna’. 59 Ibid., sigs B6v-B7r: ‘poiche sono cose di sì rara virtù, che meritano ogni lode, sì de pittori antichi come de moderni; incominciando da Gio: Bellino Veneziano, e Bartolomeo Montagna Vicentino’. 60 Ibid., p. 4: ‘sacrestia vi è un quadro ove un santo communica diversi, opera antica d’autor incerto degna di

lode’. 61 Ibid., pp. 90-91: ‘opera di Bartolomeo Montagna, cosi ben conservata, come se fosse stata di presente’. 62 Examples include a number of paintings by Titian in San Marciliano, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari and SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which had suffered considerable damage, as well as a painting by Palma il Vecchio in Madonna dell’Orto which had been partially destroyed by fire. 63 Boschini, Le ricche minere (‘Breve instruzione’), sig. D12r: ‘Gravi errori per certo!’

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lovers or dilettanti, enabling them to gain a better understanding of how to look at paintings

by keeping in mind notions such as disegno, colorito and invenzione.64

The structure and the content of the first edition were preserved, and new additions

were marked with an asterisk, including works by the Vivarini family and their followers,

Giovanni Bellini and his followers, Cima da Conegliano and, finally, Palma il Vecchio.65

Boschini also attempts to provide attributions. For example, referring to a painting in San

Spirito, he says that it ‘resembled the manner of Bartolomeo Vivarini’.66 Likewise, two other

works in the same church are assigned to followers of Giovanni Bellini and Palma il

Vecchio respectively.67 For other works whose authorship was clear, Boschini provided

concise information about the painter, the subject and the location. With respect to his

vocabulary, there do not seem to be major differences from the original edition. He

commonly uses terms such as ‘majestic throne’ and ‘decorous architectures’, especially

when referring to paintings by Bartolomeo Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini.68 Most of the

early works of art added to the second edition, with very few exceptions, were not recorded

either by Sansovino or Ridolfi.69 Moreover, Boschini made more of an effort than those

two earlier writers to record as many works of art as possible in every church. So, for

instance, in the church of San Spirito alone, he mentioned works by Bartolomeo Vivarini,

Giovanni Bellini, Bonifacio Veronese and a follower of Palma il Vecchio.70 Boschini was

aware of the changes which had occurred over time, especially the replacement of paintings

in various churches, which he noted carefully.71

Like Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie dell’arte, Le ricche minere marks a significant moment in

Venetian artistic literature. With its specific orientation, it brings a new breadth of

perspectives to the judgement of paintings by adding a practical dimension and by

64 These terms are brought in at the end of his short history of art: ibid., sigs E1r-E8v. 65 Boschini, Le ricche minere, pp. 20, 49, 77 (the Vivarini and followers); ibid., pp. 58 and 77 (Giovanni Bellini and followers); ibid., pp. 10-11 (Cima da Conegliano). 66 Ibid. (Castello), p. 77: ‘opera che si avvicina alla maniera del Vivarini’. 67 Ibid.: ‘opera sopra lo stile di Giovanni Bellini’, and ‘opera sopra lo stile del Palma il Vecchio’. 68 Ibid., p. 20: ‘maestoso trono’, and p. 77: ‘decorose architetture’. 69 One such exception is The Virgin and the Child in Santo Stefano, which Boschini, following Ridolfi, mistakenly assigned to Palma il Vecchio; it is, in fact, by Bonifacio Veronese; see P. Rylands, Palma il Vecchio, Cambridge 1992, p. 307. 70 Boschini, Le ricche minere (Castello), pp. 77-8. 71 E.g., a painting by Cima in Santa Maria de’ Crocicchieri, which, to Boschini’s regret, had been replaced by a modern one by Giacomo Moratto; see Boschini, Le ricche minere (Canareggio), p. 11: ‘ove era pure l’Annonciata di Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, è stata levata, ne si vede più; ed era cosa preziosa ed in suo luogo vi è stata posta altra pittura moderna di mano di Giacomo Moratto’.

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introducing an artistic vocabulary which equips the viewer with the critical tools needed to

assess paintings both of the past and of the present with greater care and awareness. It is

also an illustration of Boschini’s ambition to provide the public with an informative and

authoritative guide to Venetian painting, which would inspire eighteenth-century writers

such as Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger to make their own contribution and to

challenge some of Boschini’s views about early Venetian painters.

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CHAPTER 4

‘Taste and Scholarship’ in Eighteenth-Century Venice: Antonio Maria Zanetti the

Younger

On the last folio of Varie pitture a fresco, an innovative work by Antonio Maria Zanetti the

Younger (1706-1778), published in 1760 and containing prints after frescos by Venetian

painters from Giorgione to Tintoretto,1 we find a posthumous addition entitled ‘Memoria’.

It consists of a one-page biography written by his brother, Girolamo, who informs us that

Antonio:

was born on 1 January 1706 in San Jacopo all’Orio in Venice. His father, Alessandro,

although not a learned man, had a special interest in fine arts and sciences... His mother

was Antonia Limonti from Milan. He was trained as a painter in Cavaliere Bambini’s studio;

and his patron, the illustrious procuratore of San Marco, Lorenzo Tiepolo, appointed him

librarian of the Marciana. He was proficient in ancient Greek, which he had learned from

Antonio Bongiovani, a priest in Lonigo... He was the main author of Bell’Opera delle antiche

statue greche e romane, for which he made the drawings; and wrote a book on Venetian

painting full of interesting and useful notes on the paintings and the artists of our highly

reputed school. He died in 1778 and was buried in Santa Maria Mater Domini.

He understood architecture and perspective very well; he was also a good poet, an

expert in music, most knowledgeable in numismatics, statues, cameos, sculpted gems and

other ancient works of this type. He was handsome, well-proportioned, had very good

manners, was a faithful friend, too serious at times, brave-hearted, difficult for the most

part with the fairer sex, sober and not at all materialistic. He was a member of the most

important European academies, and all the scholars of his day knew him.2

1 Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger, Varie pitture a fresco de’ principali maestri veneziani. Ora la prima volta con le stampe pubblicate, Venice 1760. In a letter to Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, Pierre Jean Mariette recommends Zanetti’s work because it included 24 prints after Venetian works which were lost; see letter CCXXV, Mariette to Bottari, 23 May Paris, 1761, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, IV, pp. 538-40, at pp. 539-40: ‘Vi si vegono in 24 tavole le triste reliquie delle ammirabili pitture di Giorgione, di Tiziano, di Paolo Veronese, ec., ce una volta già abbellivano le facciate di Venezia, e di cui non ci rimane quasi niente. Queste non sono quasi altro che frammenti di figure, ma la cui memoria è sempre preziosa, e voi non vi potete dispensare dal provvedervene per la libreria Corsini.’ 2 Girolamo Zanetti, ‘Memoria’, in Zanetti, Varie pitture: ‘Egli nacque il primo giorno dell’anno di N. S. 1706 in San Jacopo dall’Orio anticamente in luprio di Vinegia. Ebbe il padre, per nome Alessandro (uomo non dotto ma grandissimo amatore dele Scienze e buone Arti)... La sua madre fu Antonia Limonti Milanese. Ebbe per

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As Edward Grassman noted, among the most important activities in the intellectual

life of eighteenth-century Italy were exchanging letters and participating in academies; and

these activities were engaged in by representative figures of the period such as Lodovico

Antonio Muratori, Giovanni Bottari and Girolamo Tiraboschi.3 As librarian of the

Marciana, Zanetti, too, exchanged letters with learned colleagues and belonged to academic

circles.4 His own and his cousin’s correspondence with Giovanni Brunacci, Francesco

Algarotti and Anton Francesco Gori on artistic matters reveal Zanetti’s active involvement

in the cultural life of his day.5 At the same time, the circulation of Italian translations of

French publications containing accounts of Venetian painting, together with the extensive

reconstructions of the histories of literature or art by writers such as Tiraboschi and Saverio

Bettinelli,6 seems to have had an impact on Zanetti’s thought and his own approach to

reconstructing the art history of Venice.7 His views on Venetian art were also influenced by

earlier or contemporary texts of Italian and French writers such as Francesco Algarotti,

D’Argenville, Roger de Piles, André Félibien and Nicholas Cochin, even though he does

not explicitly cite them.8

maestri nelle scienze un valente prete chiamato dottore Hocker, indi i Gesuti, e nella pittura, cui fu dalla natura stessa invitato e spinto, il celebre cav. Bambini e procc. di S. Marco Lorenzo Tiepolo d’illustre memoria, fu suo particular protettore e sostegno, e lo promosse, essendo Bibliotecario, insieme cogli eccell. Riformatori dello studio di Padova all’onorevol posto di Custode della pubblica libreria che sostenne non senza molta riputazione per quarantadue anno. Fu valentissimo nella Lingua greca imparata in parte da se, e in parte colla guida del suo e mio ottimo e desideratissimo amico D. Antonio Bongiovanni prete di Lonigo... Fu principale autore e disegnatore della Bell’Opera delle antiche statue greche e romane che si ammirano nell’antisala della teste accennata bibliteca, e scrisse un libro della pittura viniziana ripieno di curiose ed utili notizie intorno alle opera e a’ professori della nostra riputatissima Scuola. Finì di vivere per fiera colica il di 3 di novembre del 1778 e fu sotterrato in Santa Maria Mater Domini... Intese molto bene l’archittetura, e la prospettiva, e fu anche buon poeta, perito nella musica, versatissimo poi nella numismatica, e singolarmente nella cognizione di statue, cammei, gemme scolpite, e altri antichi lavori di ogni genere. Fu di bell’aspetto, di giusta statura, di ottimi costumi, amico fedele, talvolta alquanto più serio del dovere, di animo forte, difficile per lo più col bel sesso, sobrio, e niente inclinator al guadagno... Fu aggregato alle principali Accademie di Europa, e conosciuto da tutti i principali letterati del suo tempo.’ 3 See E. Grassmann, All’ombra del Vasari. Cinque saggi sulla storiografia dell’arte nell’Italia del Settecento, Florence 2000, pp. 143-75 (‘Lettere dello Zanetti al Brunacci’), at pp. 143-4. 4 The Zanetti family, for instance, is recorded among the members of the Paduan Accademia degli Ricovrati; see G. Banzoni, ‘I Ricovrati nel ’600’, in Dall’Accademia dei Ricovrati all’Accademia Galileana. Atti del convegno storico per il IV centenario della fondazione (1599-1999): Padova...2000, ed. E. Riondato, Padua 2001, pp. 11-57, at p. 25. 5 See Grassmann, All’ombra del Vasari, p. 144. 6 Saverio Bettinelli, Risorgimento d’Italia negli studi, nelle arti e ne’ costumi dopo il mille, Bassano 1775. 7 See Previtali, La fortuna, p. 99. 8 E.g., Francesco Algarotti’s Saggio sopra la pittura, Venice 1756; the Italian edition of André Félibien’s Entretiens, entitled Vita degli architetti ...,Venice 1755; and Roger de Piles’s Idée, Venice 1770; see also Grassmann, All’ombra del Vasari, pp. 117-24, and N. Ivanoff, ‘Antonio Maria Zanetti – critico d’arte’, Atti dell’Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 111, 1953, pp. 29-48, at pp. 30-32, for the influence of de Piles and Cochin.

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In this section I shall examine two of Zanetti’s writings on art, Descrizione della pittura

veneziana (1733) and Della pittura veneziana (1771), with the aim of outlining his contributions

to Venetian art historiography and establishing the position of his writings within the

spectrum of Venetian artistic literature.

Descrizione della pittura veneziana (1733)

One of Zanetti’s earlier writings, published in Venice in 1733, was entitled Descrizione di tutte

le pubbliche pitture della città di Venezia. It was intended as a new edition of Boschini’s Le ricche

minere and was dedicated to his elder cousin, also called Antonio Maria Zanetti, whom he

describes as ‘one of the most distinguished dilettanti of drawings of the present day and one

of the most erudite connoisseurs of ancient and modern paintings’.9 In the preface, Zanetti

recounts the history of painting from its origins to the first appearance of art works in

Venice; and, like Boschini, he emphasizes disegno, invenzione and colorito, devoting three

separate sections to these notions.10 There then follows a compendium of short biographies

of artists ordered chronologically from Guariento (1310-1370) to Angelo Trevisani (1669-

1753), most of which were based on those found in the books of Ridolfi and Boschini.11

What differs, however, from the previous descriptions is Zanetti’s use of new pictorial

terms and of different criteria for judging works of art. Analysing Jacobello del Fiore’s

paintings, for instance, he singles out ‘the figures of saints depicted with modesty and

propriety, which inspire devotion’ (fig. 24).12 In contrast to previous Venetian writers, who,

in referring to Jacobello, had noted that he still painted in ‘a Greek manner’, that is, in the

Byzantine style, Zanetti focuses on a different aspect of his paintings: their ‘proprietà’, or

appropriateness, which, in his opinion, was a distinctive quality of Trecento and

9 Zanetti, Descrizione, p. [ii]: ‘uno de’ più distinti dilettanti della presente età nel disegno, e per uno de’ dotti conoscitori delle antiche e moderne pitture.’ Antonio Maria Zanetti the Elder (1680-1767) was a Venetian collector, artistic adviser to English consuls and correspondent of Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774) and Count Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764). 10 Ibid., pp. 6-14. 11 Ibid., p. 15: ‘Compendio delle vite, e maniere de’ più riguardevoli pittori didotto da quello, ch’il Cavalier Carlo Ridolfi, e Marco Boschini ne scrissero.’ 12 Ibid., p. 16: ‘e facendo le arie de’ volti de’ Santi con certa modestia e proprietà, che veramente incitano alla divozione’.

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Quattrocento art.13 With Zanetti’s description in mind, the eighteenth-century viewer would

gaze at Jacobello’s paintings with different eyes, aware of what saints should look like in

order to exert a powerful impression on them.

Colour and composition were two other features which particularly interested

Zanetti. In his opinion, Donato Veneziano’s Crucifixion in the refectory of San Giorgio in

Alga provided the best example of the two elements joined together in an exquisite manner.

He praises their ‘neat and beautiful colours’ and the artist’s skill in integrating the figures

within the composition.14

Referring to Bartolomeo Vivarini, Zanetti identifies the three main characteristics

of his art which made him stand out as an excellent painter: propriety, charm and

naturalness.15 This is the second time that the term ‘propriety’ crops up in Zanetti’s

vocabulary to designate a particular feature of Trecento and Quattrocento paintings. These

three terms also served as indications of the qualities on which he based his rankings of

painters and allowed him to highlight the stylistic progress from one artist to another. For

instance, he considered Giovanni Buonconsiglio ‘among the greatest representatives of the

ancient manner’ and acknowledged Marco Basaiti’s contribution to ‘good painting’ through

his ‘softness’ and his ‘delightful and expressive compositions, with many figures’.16 Zanetti

was, in fact, the first Venetian writer to use the term ‘softness’ in connection with Basaiti’s

works, suggesting a contrast with the ‘hard manner’,17 a pejorative label often applied by

Sansovino, Ridolfi and Boschini to Trecento paintings such as those by Jacobello (figs 25,

26).

At the summit of his ranking of artists before Giorgione, Zanetti placed Giovanni

Bellini, who, in his opinion, painted ‘infinitely better than his predecessors’.18 Bellini’s

13 See Chapter 2, n. 25 above. 14 Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 17: ‘Donato...fu de’ primi che cominciassero ad operare con netto e bel colore, e con qualche arbitrio, campeggiando le figure con paesi, e con altro, e facendo copiose istorie; particolarmente nel Refettorio de’ Padri di S. Giorgio in Alga dipinse in gran tavola la crocifissione del Signore con molte e ben disposte figure.’ 15 Ibid., p. 17: ‘proprietà, vaghezza, e naturalezza’. 16 Ibid.: ‘tra i migliori operatori nell’antica maniera’, and p. 18: ‘avvantaggiò la pittura buona parte nella tenerezza, nella composizione gustosa e ben espresso di più figure’. 17 Sharp outlines, together with the static figures depicted in a Byzantine style, were among the features which, in Zanetti’s view, gave the impression of a ‘hard manner’; for some of the artistic terms employed by Zanetti in this case, see Appendix IX, nos 12, 17, 24, in vol. II of this dissertation; for a contrast between Basaiti’s style and that of the ‘ancients’, see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 75: ‘e ben segnati sono gli occhi, il naso, e la bocca, che par di rilievo e viva; oltre al dimostrare un’aria umile veramente e divota. Quest’arte era nuova in quei dì; e non l’aveano conosciuta ancora i seguaci degli antichi modi.’ 18 Ibid., p. 19: ‘dipinse...infinitamente meglio degli altri tutti, che prima di lui dipingessero’.

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paintings, he believed, had reached perfection, even though they still lacked softness.19 In

Zanetti’s view, he was ‘a diligent painter and a charming colourist’. 20

Although Zanetti does not set out a strict chronology in his short biographies, he

divides artists broadly into four groups. The first group begins with Guariento and ends

with Giovanni Bellini.21 The next covers painters from Giorgione to Girolamo da Ponte

(1566-1621). Zanetti includes two of the four canonical painters of the Venetian manner in

this group: Titian and Jacopo Bassano (the other two being Tintoretto and Veronese).22 The

penultimate group starts with Tintoretto and ends with Fra Cosimo (1537-1620); and the

last one goes from Pietro Liberi (1605-1687) to Angelo Trevisani (1699-1753).23 This final

group, unlike the previous ones, which, for the most part, included painters Zanetti

regarded as excellent – an opportunity for him to produce an array of laudatory passages –

features artists who, in his view, belonged to a less talented generation, whose styles were

not equal to those of their predecessors. So, instead of producing a complete set of

biographies, which would have constrained him to make negative judgements, he provided

accounts only of those painters whom he considered to be praiseworthy and advised

readers to consult Ridolfi’s biographies for the rest.24 Even so, Zanetti gives biographies of

thirty-three artists who had caught his eye.25 It is striking, nevertheless, that he preferred to

19 Ibid.: ‘la pittura alla perfezione ridotta; non mancando alle cose sue...che alquanto più di morbidezza.’ 20 Ibid., p. 20: ‘Fu diligente e vaghissimo coloritore.’ 21 In his biography of Giorgione, Zanetti reaffirms the developments and progress of the first period of painting which culminated with Giovanni Bellini; see Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 22: ‘Furono non piccioli i progressi, che fece la pittura in quella prima sua età in riguardo a’ primieri, che la trattarono fino a Gio: Bellino.’ 22

Ibid. p. 40: ‘Quattro dicemo essere stati i classici autori della Viniziana maniera, e di due primi cioè di

Tiziano, e del Bassano assieme cogli allievi loro abbiamo descritte le vite, e le maniere; passiamo ora al terzo ch’è Jacopo Robusti, detto il Tintoretto.’ The four artists most appreciated by Boschini were Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto; see Chapter 3, n. 57 above. 23 Zanetti, Descrizione, pp. 40-54. 24Ibid., p. 54: ‘Il seguire onde noi sceglieremo alcuni pochi, che con gran vantaggio dagli altri si distinsero, rimetendo il dilettante, che volesse di alcuni altri sapere i ragguagli, al libro II delle Meraviglie dell’Arte del Cavaliere Ridolfi.’ The artists whose biographies should be consulted in Ridolfi’s work were: Tommaso Dolobella (1570-1650), Antonio Vicentino (1538-1617), Alessandro Maganza (1556-1630), Marcantonio Bassetti (1588-1630), Giorgio Damini (?-1631), Tommaso Sandrino (1575-1630), Francesco Zugni (?-1636), Giovanni Battista Bissone, Filippo Zanimberti (1585-1636), Claudio Ridolfi (1560-1640) and Carlo Ridolfi (1594-1658). 25 These are: Pietro Liberi (1605-1687), Pietro Vecchia (1602-1678), Carlo Loth (1632-1698), Sebastiano Bombelli (1635-1716), Luca Giordano (1632-1705), Federico Cervelli, Francesco Ruschi, Giulio Carpioni (1613-1678), Andrea Celesti (1637-1712), Antonio Fumiani (1645-1710), Antonio Molinari, Giovanni Segalla, Gregorio Lazzarini (1655-1730), Luca Carlevari (1663-1730), Marco Ricci (1676-1729), Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734), Antonio Balestra (1666-1740), Nicolò Bambini (1651-1736), Matteo Bortoloni, Girolamo Brusaferro, Antonio Canale (1697-1768), Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), Alessandro Marchesini (1663-1738), Giovambattista Mariotti, Bartolommeo Nazari (1699-1758), Santo Piatti, Giovambattista Piazzetta (1682-

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leave out the less gifted artists rather than including them in his compendium and criticizing

their works or styles of painting. This attitude reveals Zanetti’s selectivity and his well-

defined ranking of artists.

He took a similar approach in the foreward. Setting out his working method,

Zanetti stated that he only recorded paintings of good quality, whether they were extant or

lost. He further explained that he had not included all the paintings mentioned by Boschini

because he believed that some of these were by less important artists. Moreover, because he

considered the painters of Boschini’s day, that is, the late seventeenth century, to be of little

merit, Zanetti reduced the length of his descriptions of their paintings.26

Zanetti’s principles of selection clearly indicate a new approach towards Venetian

art compared with that adopted by previous writers. While Boschini and Ridolfi largely

made arbitrary choices as to the paintings which they recorded in their guidebooks.

Zanetti’s preferences were more primarily dictated by aesthetic criteria. He paid greater

attention to the quality of a painting than his predecessors had done and was more

confident than they had been about what was, or was not, of value in them. His guidebook

therefore marks an important stage in the development of Venetian writings about art. His

introduction of an expanded artistic vocabulary allowed him to express more nuanced

opinions on particular paintings, as well as helping him to shape his readers’ appreciation of

these works. He was also more dogmatic in his judgements than his predecessors.

In what follows, I shall examine the extent to which Zanetti’s programmatic

statements in the compendium and foreward are reflected in his choice of works of art in

the Descrizione. I shall also analyse the relationship of Zanetti’s book to Boschini’s Le ricche

minere and Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie dell’arte and identify which works he considered to be less

important and therefore decided not to include in his guidebook.

1754), Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741), Giambattista Pittoni (1687-1767), Francesco Polazzi, Giovambatista Tiepolo (1696-1770) and Angelo Trevisani (1699-1753). 26 Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 64: ‘abbiamo levate le lunghe descrizioni fatte da quello [Boschini] alle cose di poco merito, come degli autori che vivevano al suo tempo’.

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Artists and Works of Art Not Mentioned by Zanetti

Even though Zanetti produced a new edition of Boschini’s guidebook, this did not mean

that he added a large amount of earlier works to those already discussed by Boschini. On

the contrary, comparing the number of paintings by artists before Giorgione mentioned by

both writers, there are 87 in Boschini’s book and only 56 in Zanetti’s.27 And in comparison

to Ridolfi, Zanetti cut the number of pre-Giorgione paintings down from 127 to 65.28 This,

however, was not the only change reflected in Zanetti’s new guidebook: unlike earlier

writers, he recorded only those works of art which measured up to his standards, leaving

out all the rest. In contrast to Boschini, for instance, he did not record any works by

Lodovico Vivarini or Giovanni Battista Lorenzetti. He omitted as well Jacopo Bellini, who

had been discussed by both Sansovino and Ridolfi.29 Among the painters included by

Ridolfi, but absent from Zanetti’s book, are Guariento, Giorgio Veneziano, Gentile da

Fabriano, Cristoforo Parmese, Bellin Bellino and Francesco Bissolo. In excluding all these

artists, Zanetti was, no doubt, applying the criteria announced at the beginning of his

guidebook: he regarded these painters as less significant, and their works did not arouse his

interest sufficiently to list them.

These omissions provide a revealing indication of his own preferences with regard

to earlier generations of artists. They also show which artists Zanetti championed and how

he attempted to teach his readers to appreciate works of art by subtly proposing a new

method and a different vocabulary. Since, however, he says nothing at all about the painters

whom he omits, we can only speculate as to his specific reasons for leaving them out.

Nonetheless, it seems very likely that he would have found their works lacking in the main

27 The scale of Zanetti’s reduction of Boschini’s list of paintings by earlier artists is apparent from these figures: Luigi Vivarini: two out of three works; Bartolomeo Vivarini: twelve out of twenty-one; Benedetto Diana: three out of four; Vittore Carpaccio: nine out of twelve; Lazzaro Sebastiani: three out of four; Gentile Bellini: three out of six; Giovanni Bellini: twenty-two out of thirty-three; Vincenzo Catena: two out of four. 28 Similarly, the scale of Zanetti’s reduction of Boschini’s list of paintings by earlier artists is apparent from these figures: Iacobello del Fiore: two out of five works; Giovanni and Antonio Vivarini: one out of five; Benedetto Diana: three out of five; Marco Basaiti: four out of five; Vittore Carpaccio: nine out of fifteen; Lazzaro Sebastiani: three out of five; Giovanni Mansueti: two out of five; Gentile Bellini: three out of nine; Giovanni Bellini: twenty-two out of forty-eight; Cima da Conegliano: ten out of fifteen; Girolamo Santa Croce: two out of five; and Vincenzo Catena: four out of five. 29 Sansovino mentions one work by Jacopo Bellini in SS. Giovanni e Paolo and two works in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista; see Sansovino, Venetia, fols 23v and 101r; Ridolfi also mentions the works in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista as well as two portraits of Jacopo Lusignano and Laura and Petrarch; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, pp. 54-5.

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attributes which he praised so highly when discussing the painters whom he admired:

proprietà, naturalezza and vaghezza, appropriateness, naturalness and charm or gracefulness.

Works of Art Mentioned Only by Zanetti

Zanetti included a number of earlier paintings which had not been mentioned by Ridolfi or

Boschini. In discussing four of them – located in Santo Stefano, Patriarcato, San Pantaleone

and the chiesa de’ Gesuiti – Zanetti did not name the artists, but recorded these paintings

on the grounds that, although executed in the ‘ancient manner’, they were in ‘quite good

taste’. He regarded the paintings in Santo Stefano as among ‘the most beautiful and well-

preserved examples of this type in Venice’.30 His descriptions of these works show that he

was interested in the art of the past from both an aesthetic and an historical point of view:

even though the artists were no longer identifiable, they nevertheless remained an

invaluable ‘document’ of the past, while their artistic quality further enhanced his

appreciation of their worth.

Among Trecento works, Zanetti mentions Nicoletto Semitecolo’s frescoes executed

for the Compagnia de’ Lucchesi, noting that they had been replaced by Pietro Ricchi’s

paintings.31Before Zanetti, only Sansovino had referred to these frescoes.32 Some

Quattrocento works appeared solely, though only very briefly, in Zanetti’s guidebook such

as those by Bartolomeo Vivarini located in eleven churches of Venice.33 Likewise, he is the

first to mention Benedetto Diana’s The Virgin and Child with Sts Jerome and Francis in

Magistrato della Zecca, though he merely identifies the subject, without providing any

assessment of it. A slightly different approach can be observed in connection with Marco

Basaiti’s Assumption of the Virgin in Santa Maria degli Angeli and Giovanni Buonconsiglio’s

altarpiece in Magistrato della messettaria: Zanetti admires the beautiful landscapes depicted

30 For the descriptions of the works, see Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 175: ‘Sonovi poi nell’altra facciata diverse figure pure dipinte a fresco di maniera antica ma assai di buon gusto. Queste pitture benchè sieno alquanto logorate sono delle più belle e conservate, che veggansi a fresco in Venezia.’ 31Ibid., p. 409: ‘sonovi diversi quadri, che contengono l’istoria del Volto Santo di Lucca, opere di Pietro Ricchi, poste in vece di quelle di Nicoletto Semitecolo, che andarano a male per l’antichità.’ 32 See Chapter 1, n. 28 above. 33 The paintings were located in Magistrato del Monte (Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 282), San Giovanni Evangelista (ibid., p. 292), San Rocco, San Giorgio (ibid., p. 339), Santa Maria della Carità (ibid., p. 341), San Giovanni Crisostomo (ibid., p. 379), San Giobbe (ibid., p. 418), San Cristoforo di Murano (ibid., p. 443), San Michiel di Murano (ibid., p. 447) and Sant’Andrea della Certosa (ibid., p. 466).

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by both artists and describes their works as ‘rare’.34 He is also the only guidebook writer to

refer to the paintings by Cima in the Magistrato della camera dell’armamento sotto il

Broglio (Sts Mark, Andrew and Louis), in San Samuello (St Thomas Altarpiece) and in San

Cristoforo di Murano (The Virgin with Other Saints).35 In all three cases, he provides no more

than basic information about the works. Finally, he mentions five paintings by Vicenzo

Catena, two of which had not featured in other guidebooks: The Virgin and the Child with

Angels and Sts Theodore and Mark, in the Procuratie di San Marco, and the Benediction of Pope

Alexander III, in Santa Maria della Carità, executed in a ‘very delicate’ manner.36

In adding new works of art from the Trecento and Quattrocento to the repertory of

Venetian guidebooks, Zanetti chose to be concise and to follow Boschini’s model, in ten

cases not expressing any opinion about the quality of the paintings. It is important to bear

in mind, however, that he included only those works of art which satisfied his taste, so all

these paintings must have measured up to his aesthetic criteria.

Della pittura veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de veneziani maestri (1771)

Suspendit picta vultum mentemque tabella

Horace, Epistles, II. 1. 97.

Thirty-eight years after the publication of Descrizione della pittura veneziana, Zanetti wrote a

new guidebook to Venetian paintings entitled: Della pittura veneziana e delle opera pubbliche de

veneziani maestri. It was published in 1771 by Giambattista Albrizzi, who was himself an

author of this type of literature.37 In the preface, Zanetti explains that, even though this

guidebook was conceived primarily as a new edition of his Descrizione della pittura veneziana

(1733), he had larger ambitions in this work, referring to it as ‘a general treatise’, in which

34 Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 449: ‘un bellissimo paese è di mano di Marco Basaiti cosa rara’, and p. 276: ‘un paese bellissimo opera rara di Giovanni Buonconsigli’. 35 Ibid., pp. 149, 172-3, 443. 36 Ibid., p. 341: ‘cosa in vero molto gentile’. 37 Albrizzi (1698-1777) published his Il Forestiere illuminato intorno alle cose più e curiose antiche e moderne della città di Venezia in Venice in 1740. This guidebook was modelled on previous examples, except that Albrizzi did not make qualitative distinctions between the works of art which he included.

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he hoped to provide a complete history of Venetian art and artists.38 He envisioned two

possible categories of readership: l’amator dilettante and il dotto professore.39 Adopting a twofold

perspective, he explained how, on the one hand, each type of reader might benefit from his

book and, on the other, how his carefully layered accounts of paintings, moving from basic

information to complex analyses, would appeal to every taste. Although Boschini had

already defined these two categories metaphorically in the ‘Breve instruzione’, his

explanation was not as coherent as Zanetti’s.40 For instance, in the case of the dilettanti,

Zanetti aimed at activating their natural impulse, which, he believed, was the origin of ‘good

taste’. This impulse was the preliminary basis for what he intended to cultivate further in

the art-lover: the ability to recognize good paintings, regardless of who painted them.41 He

hoped that through this ‘educational approach’, his readership would learn to appreciate art

works of great merit, so that, whenever they found themselves in the churches of Venice

admiring their favourite pieces, they would desire to see whether there were other paintings

worth viewing.42 As for professori, or painters by profession, Zanetti believed that the

guidebook could serve only as a reference work; for those, however, who aspired to

become painters, he intended to offer proper guidance and explain complicated issues such

as the origins of ‘the marvellous effects of grand and sublime works of art’, a very

challenging task which his predecessors had not attempted.43

This is the first time that a Venetian writer formulated a new system for his

guidebook and set out to explain it with such clarity. Zanetti offered his readers an

innovative and authoritative perspective on art, which he created by introducing aesthetic

notions such as ‘taste’, but also by relying on common sense and his personal reflections.

The most systematic Venetian writer up to his time, he was also consistent: repeating ideas

from his earlier writings, he maintained that he discussed only ‘beautiful’ paintings and left

out those which were of no interest to him or to ‘those who were able to judge them’ and

38 Zanetti, Della pittura, p. VII: ‘formarne seriamente un intero generale trattato... L’opera mia e un’istoria dell’arte e degli artisti veneziani, in quanto appartiene ad essa arte e non altro.’ 39 Ibid., p. IX. 40

See Chapter 3, n. 41 above. 41 Zanetti, Della pittura., p. IX: ‘Per l’amator dilettante volli aggiungere a’racconti miei tutti quei lumi che sogliono raffinare il natural sentimento di esso, onde il buon gusto ha l’origine.’ 42Ibid.: ‘trovandosi in una chiesa o in altro luogo, per vedere un quadro, vuol sapere se ivi sta qualche altra opera degna d’essere veduta, prima di partirsi’. 43 Ibid.: ‘Ma per chi è sulla via d’arrivare a quell grado, feci ogni sforzo per farci capire donde nascessero i

maravigliosi effetti delle opera grandi e sublimi; cosa da altri, per quanto io sappia non mai tentata.’

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which ‘deserved to be removed from churches, without any regret’.44 In this section, I shall

explore how Zanetti organized his ‘treatise’ and how his judgements on Venetian painters

and works of art evolved, as he announced in the preface, from simple to more complex

assessments.

Zanetti conceived of his Della pittura veneziana as a combination of a guidebook and

a collection of biographies of artists. It was divided into five books, each of which

contained chronologically arranged sections on Venetian painters and descriptions of their

works, a detailed list of non-Venetian painters who had been active in Venice and, finally, a

catalogue of prints after public works of art in Venice. Occasionally, the order in which he

presented the painters was not strictly chronological, because he wanted to organize them

into groups according to their style.45 The work begins with a discussion of the first forms

of art which appeared in Venice, including the mosaics in the basilica of San Marco and a

number of anonymous paintings dating from around 1300.46 Zanetti thought that the style

of these paintings had been influenced by the Greek or Byzantine manner and that,

therefore, they were lacking in good technique. He did not, however, include these works

solely for purposes of historical documentation, as had most of the earlier writers on art

when dealing with pre-1350 paintings. Instead, he found a new justification for their

presence in his guidebook by acknowledging that there was sound reasoning behind their

execution, even though the paintings were not excellent in themselves.47 This observation

alone shows that he had an acute critical sense and a good grasp of detail.

Zanetti’s classification of painters after 1350 differs considerably from those of

Boschini and other guidebook writers and, unlike theirs, is based on stylistic evaluations

rather than chronology. The first group consists of Quattrocento and early Cinquecento

painters from Lorenzo Veneziano (1357-1372) to Bartolomeo Vivarini (1440-1500). Earlier

44 Ibid., p. X: ‘Tutte le opere belle io descrissi’; ‘i quadri di cui non parlo sono i più disapprovati da chi puo giudicare, e che potrebbero levarsi dalle chiese senza rimorso’. Zanetti did not, for instance, discuss the paintings of Jacopo Bellini. 45 Ibid., p. 32: ‘Perciò volendo io seguir l’orme della pittura nostra nei suoi progressi, mi conviene dividere questa varia turba, e formarne tre differenti schiere, senza seguire rigorosamente la cronologia, che non resterà tuttavia stranamente alterata.’ 46 These works were: a portrait of St Donato in San Donato in Murano; a painting of St Nicholas in Scuola di S. Niccolò; stories from the life of Christ or the Virgin in Scuola dell’Annunziata; a painting of St Peter Martyr in San Giorgio Maggiore; and a painting of St Gregory in San Gregorio. In most cases, the attribution of these works was unclear. 47 Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 7: ‘che in esse opera veder si fa, molti assai sensibilmente, come alcune teorie nella pittura, fossero rendute migliori assai prima della buona esecuzione; e che perciò intendasi che questa seconda fu ed è più difficile delle prime a ottenersi’.

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writers had not mentioned Lorenzo Veneziano’s works; however, in Zanetti’s opinion, he

was a worthy representative of the first period of painting. Writing of his Virgin Annunciate

in Sant’Antonio (fig. 27), Zanetti observed that the main action was visualized with ‘great

propriety...and shows quite clearly the good insight of the wise painter, who attempted to

give life and expression to his figures by following in the footsteps of nature and truth’.48

Zanetti, however, claimed that in order for this work to be classed as a good painting,

Lorenzo would have had to prove that he had mastered a better style.49

Discussing another painter of the same period, Guariento, Zanetti described his

early style, in his Paduan frescoes, as ‘greccheggiante’ (figs 28, 29).50 Even though his style

was not pleasing to Zanetti’s taste, he still regarded him as talented on account of his

ideas.51 Although he had not included Guariento in the 1733 edition of his guidebook,

because he did not consider his works to be ‘beautiful’, Zanetti now decided to record and

evaluate his works in Padua – though not the fresco in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, which

was no longer visible and which he had briefly touched on in the preface to his Descrizione.52

Since he was determined to exclude works of art which did not correspond to his aesthetic

criteria, Zanetti’s decision to introduce Guariento is somewhat surprising. It can perhaps be

explained by the fact that Venetian art history was generally held to have begun with him or

else as a result of Zanetti’s innovative view that the value of earlier paintings lay in their

conceptual, rather than stylistic, assessment by viewers.53 He also provided his readers with

a brief comparative analysis of the styles of Lorenzo Veneziano and Guariento, praising

Lorenzo’s ability to depict heads and capture expressions (fig. 30), and Guariento’s skill in

depicting folds, clothing and movement (fig. 31).54

48 Ibid., p. 8: ‘con molta proprietà è immaginata l’azione principale, e mostrassi assai chiaramente il buon animo del saggio pittore, che tentò di dar vita ed espressione alle sue figure sulle trace della natura e della verità.’ 49 Ibid.: ‘Se a sì giusti pensamenti avesse egli potuto aggiungere bontà di stile, sarebbe questa tavola fra le buone pitture tenuta; ma le scuole di que’ tempi non potean dare di più.’ 50 Ibid., p. 10: ‘trovasi lo stile di Guariento greccheggiante’. 51 Ibid.: ‘nei pensamenti apparisce un genio’. 52 Zanetti, Descrizione, p. 16: ‘Guariento Padovano, essendo stato scelto dal Senato nel 1365 sotto il Principato del Doge Marco Cornaro, a dipingere nella sala del gran conseglio il Paradiso.’ 53 Zanetti shared this view about the beginnings of Venetian art history with Sansovino and Ridolfi; see Sansovino, Venetia, fol. 123v: ‘il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento’; Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 17: ‘Quando dopo l’anno 1300, si cominciò à migliorar la maniera, e tra quelli che fecero opera di qualche considerazione in quella Città fu Guariento’; and Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 9: ‘questo artefice da cui comincia l’istoria appunto de’ nostri pittori’. 54 Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 10: ‘Guariento forse dispose meglio di questo le pieghe de’ panni e le movenze delle

figure; ma Lorenzo mostra qualche maggiore abilità nelle teste e nelle espressioni.’

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As he continued his account of Venetian painting, Zanetti began to point out a

subtle evolution in style, which became more noticeable in the works of Andrea da

Murano. He observed that Andrea da Murano and his followers – including the Vivarini,

Jacobello del Fiore, Carlo Crivelli and Donato Veneziano – had managed to escape from

the ‘very ancient rigidities’ and to replace these with ‘intelligence and skill’.55 In other words,

in Zanetti’s view, the early Trecento painters had a hard or stiff manner, while the new

group of artists had developed a less rigid style. Accordingly, his analyses become more

detailed and less critical. For instance, he notes that Luigi Vivarini’s painting of St Jerome

with the Lion in Scuola di San Girolamo had ‘appropriate figures, dressed with proper

clothes, disposed and rendered with naturalness’.56 Writing about Giovanni and Antonio

Vivarini’s Coronation of the Virgin in San Pantaleone, he says that ‘it was carried out with great

love; and the figures were placed in good order and with decorum’.57 As for Jacobello del

Fiore’s Virgin in Scuola della Carità, it showed that ‘the painter’s imagination was not only

noble but also at times graceful’.58 Zanetti considered Bartolomeo Vivarini’s Virgin of

Humility in Santa Maria Formosa (fig. 32) to be ‘one of his best works, carried out with

great love, competent taste and intelligence’.59 Or, referring to Alvise Vivarini’s Resurrected

Christ in S. Giovanni in Bragora (fig. 33), he noted that the figure of Christ was portrayed

‘with elegance, briskness and skilful drawing. The colours and the shading are quite

delightful and blended with artistry.’60 Zanetti’s comments on these works reveal a different

approach from the attitude reflected in his accounts of Guariento or Lorenzo Veneziano:

he regards them as representatives of a better style, of a new aesthetic and taste, which

needs to be described with a new vocabulary and judged with higher expectations.

‘Imagination’, ‘decorum’, ‘order’, ‘taste’ and ‘skilful drawing’ are just a few of the notions he

employed to describe the stylistic evolution which was beginning to take place in Venetian

art.

55 Ibid., p. 11: ‘ma si esca oramai di quelle antichissime rigidezze, e si cominci a vedere nelle pitture nostre ingegno ed arte’. 56 Ibid., pp. 13-14: ‘figure molto bene inventate e situate, vestite di ben intesi panni, disposti e fatti con molta naturalezza’. 57 Ibid., p. 15: ‘È condotta con molto amore; e non ne sono le figure disposte senza buon ordine e decoro.’ 58 Ibid., p. 17: ‘che nobile non solamente, ma qualche volta graziosa era la fantasia di questo Pittore’. 59 Ibid., p. 25: ‘condotta con molto amore, con sufficiente gusto ed intelligenza’. 60 Ibid., p. 26: ‘questa figura ritratta...non senza eleganza, sveltezza e disegno. I colori e gli ombreggiamenti sono lieti abbastanza, e uniti con artifizio’.

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Writing about painters from Vittore Carpaccio (1460-1525/26) to Girolamo

Santacroce (1480-1556), Zanetti divides them into three groups: those who followed the

‘old ways’, from Carpaccio to Francesco Rizzo (1500-1541); those who distanced

themselves from the previous ‘coldness’, from Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) to Andrea

Mantegna (1431-1506); and those who attempted to come up with new ideas, from Marco

Basaiti (1470-1530) to Girolamo Santacroce (1480-1556).61 These classifications were based,

like the previous ones, on stylistic criteria. So, Carpaccio, in Zanetti’s eyes, was largely

influenced by the old style: although his figures were not noble, he understood perspective;

and although his manner of execution was not soft, he painted with infinite love and

ingenious appropriateness.62 This assessment of Carpaccio does not seem as positive as one

might expect from a painter considered to be the leader of the first group.63 Nevertheless,

his account of Carpaccio’s cycle of stories from the life of St Ursula is one of the most

detailed and interesting descriptions in the book and seems to raise the artist to a different

level from his contemporaries:

I...believe that one of the greatest merits of this work lies in the effects, especially those

which it has on the feelings and on the hearts of people without the slightest artistic

knowledge. I sometimes stand in this chapel unobserved and see certain respectable people

entering, who, after a brief prayer, and even during the prayer itself, turn their eyes to these

paintings, their faces and minds transfixed just as Horace said: ‘mind and vision enraptured

by painted panels’, showing that they readily understand each representation; they judge

with their hearts and cannot hide the internal emotions which they experience. Truth

imitated and depicted with reason has great power over the feelings of every spectator,

even without the aid of art... I am not, to be sure, saying that one should necessarily paint

like Carpaccio.64

61 Ibid., p. 16: ‘Sarà la prima classe quella dei seguaci più constanti delle vecchie maniere; la seconda di quelli che da se si partirono dall’antica freddezza, e la terza di quelli che vissero ai tempi di Giorgione e dopo, e che tentarono di sgombrare le vecchie immagini, e dar luogo nella loro mente alle nuove.’ 62 Ibid., pp. 33-4: ‘ma nobil non furono le forme delle sue figure. S’intese di prospettiva quanto altro mai... Dipinse con infinito amore; e segue la buona espressione con verita pienissima, e ingegnosa proprietà.’ 63 Ibid., p. 33: ‘Vittore Carpaccio si dee tenere come duce della prima schiera.’ 64 Ibid., pp. 35-6: ‘Uno de’ maggiori pregi tuttavia di essa opere io credo che consista negli effetti, e in quelli singolarmente che fanno sul senso, e sul cuore delle genti lontane dalle cognizioni dell’arte. Io mi sto in questa cappella inosservato alcuna volta, e veggo entrare certe buone persone, che dopo una breve orazione, anzi spesso nell’orazione medesima, rivogliendo gli occhi a queste pitture, restano sospese il volto e la mente, appunto come disse colui: Suspendit picta vultum mentemque tabella, mostrano d’intendere agevolmente ogni rappresentazione; ragionano in suo cuore; e non possono nascondere l’interno movimento che provano. Gran

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Zanetti enhances the impact of his description by quoting a line from Horace’s Epistles. He

also creates an almost theatrical scene in which he hides in the chapel in order to witness

people’s reactions in front of Carpaccio’s cycle and observes how the paintings make such a

powerful emotional impression on viewers that they are even distracted from their

prayers.65 Zanetti here gives us an insight into that ‘natural impulse’ which he had

mentioned in his preface, claiming that it enables even the most inexperienced spectators to

detect attractive features in a good painting. In his view, an image needs to be simple, clear

and truthful in order to stimulate their senses, so that they experience a positive response,

and Carpaccio’s stories seem to fulfil all these requirements. Even though Zanetti

recognizes that contemporary painters have a different and more accomplished approach to

painting, he feels that they should still take Carpaccio’s works as an example of simple

beauty and the truthful depiction of reality.

Unlike most of the writers on art – including Ridolfi and Boschini, who, in

discussing Giovanni Bellini’s images of The Madonna and Child, pointed out that their beauty

derived from their capacity to inspire devotion and that they should be appreciated on this

account – Zanetti’s description of Carpaccio’s St Ursula paintings goes beyond the

devotional element. Even though he acknowledged the link between an image, aesthetic

beauty and devotion, Zanetti’s stance in relation to Carpaccio’s paintings was innovative.66

Since these works were part of a narrative cycle, they had to be treated differently from

devotional images and were to be admired primarily for their aesthetic beauty and power.

Discussing other paintings by Carpaccio such as those in the Scuola di San Giorgio and San

forza ha la verità imitata e dipinta con la sola ragione, anche senza gli aiuti dell’arte, sul senso d’ogni spettatore!... Non pretendo io già, che si dipinga come il Carpaccio.’ For the translation of Horace, see A. S. Kline at: http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpistlesBkIIEpI.htm 65 For more information on the ‘beholder’s experience’ of visual images in the early modern period, see T. Frangenberg and R. Williams, eds, The Beholder: The Experience of Art in Early Modern Europe, Aldershot 2006. 66 For Zanetti’s assessment of Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece in San Zaccaria, see Zanetti, Della pittura, pp. 50-1: ‘in Zaccaria evvi una delle più celebrate opera di Gian Bellino. È questa una tavola che sta al secondo altare alla sinistra, dipinta, come si vede, nel 1505. Il campo figura un casamento a volta, sostenuto da pilastri che corrispondono appunto a quelli dell’ altare sicche l’istesso l’altare mostra come d’esserne l’ingresso; e se chi ha aggiunta modernamente la cornice dorata intorno ad essa tavola, e nell’orlo dell’altare, che non è se non un foro, avesse bene intesa l’idea del pittore, conceputa con tanto giudizio, non sarebbe incorso in un error tanto grande. Sotto essa volta evvi la Madonna a sedere in alto seggio, e nel piano stanno i santi Pietro e Girolamo, e le sante Catterina ed Agata. Ognuna di queste figure decorosamente è vestita, e spira nel volto e negli atti santità e divozione. Ottima n’è la ragione del disegno, bellissimi sono i panni, e n’è amorosissimo il lavoro. L’arte dell’ombre è molto più avanzata che nelle altre sue pitture: il colore è più caldo; e chiaramente si vede in fine, che chi dipinse questa tavola avea vedute l’opere di Giorgione, e avea saputo cogliere da esse alcuni frutti, ma non ancora quello della morbidezza dell’ombre, e dell’opportuno abbagliamento dei secchi contorni.’

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Girolamo, Zanetti pays attention to the way in which he composed his scenes and the

diligence with which he depicted the figures.67

Zanetti does not include many paintings by other artists in this group – Lazaro

Sebastiani, Giovanni Mansueti, Marco and Pietro Veglia and Francesco Rizzo.68 He makes

sure, however, to select those which best express the particular characteristics of that

period, using terms such as ‘beautiful’, ‘noble’, ‘very ornate’, ‘languid and dry’ in his

descriptions.69

The influence of the earlier manner of painting was less apparent in the second

group of artists from this period, who inaugurated a new, improved style. These included

Giovanni and Gentile (but not Jacopo) Bellini, Cima del Conegliano, Vittore Belliniano, Il

Cordella, Francesco da Santa Croce, Giovanni Buonconsiglio, Benedetto Diana and Andrea

Mantegna. For Zanetti, Giovanni Bellini was not only the key figure in this second group,

but also the ‘prince’ of Venetian painting of the first period:

To him, more than the others is due the honour of having embellished the small and

narrow figures by making them bigger, of reviving with gusto the languid and dull colours

and of introducing the study of light and shadows as necessary to render any object

rounded to the eyes and to make it appear near or far, according to the circumstances, from

which sweet harmony begins to take shape.70

The idea that these artists started to distance themselves from the old style of painting and

to express themselves more powerfully crops up in most of Zanetti’s assessments. For

instance, evaluating Giovanni Bellini’s Dead Christ in the Magistrato dell’Avogaria, he writes:

67 Ibid., pp. 37-8. 68 Zanetti mentions three paintings by Lazzaro Sebastiani in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, Corpo di Christo and San Severo (ibid., pp. 41-2); three paintings by Giovanni Mansueti in Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista and Scuola di San Marco (ibid., pp. 43-4), one painting by Marco and Pietro Veglia, in the Scuola di Sant’Alvise and Magistrato della Tana, respectively, (ibid., pp. 44-5) and two paintings by Francesco Rizzo (ibid., p. 45). 69 See, e.g., his descriptions of paintings by Mansueti: ‘belle, ornate di nobile architetture’ (ibid., p. 44) and by Rizzo: ‘languido e secco’ (ibid., p. 45). 70 Ibid., p. 46: ‘principe della pittura nostra nella prima età’; ‘a lui si dee l’onore sopra gli altri di aver abbellite di carattere più grande le forme delle figure, già meschine e ristrette: di averne riscaldate saporitamente le tinte, languide e smorte; e d’aver fatto conoscere lo studio dell’ombre e dei lumi, come necessario per rendere ogni oggetto rotondo agli occhi, e farlo comparire lontano e vicino, secondo la situazione; onde ne cominciò a nascere la dolcissima armonia’.

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The features of the old style can still be clearly recognized in this painting; nevertheless, it

somehow conveys more grandeur and suggests that whoever painted it was able to cross

the ancient line and give better shape to the naked figures and compose with greater artistry

and grace than his masters.71

Zanetti praised many of Giovanni Bellini’s paintings and gave them the most extensive

accounts in his entire guidebook. He carefully recorded their location and date, described

the frame, examined every detail of the composition, categorized the style and expressed his

critical assessment. He considered the Madonna with St Peter, St Jerome, St Catherine and St

Agatha in San Zaccaria (fig. 34) to be Bellini’s most distinguished painting, impeccably

drawn and able to inspire devotion.72

Zanetti, moreover, judged the works of the other painters in this group in

comparison to Bellini, as well as to the older masters. He observed, for example, that Cima

da Conegliano’s painting in San Michele in Murano resembled Bellini’s style, especially on

account of the diligence and love with which it was painted and its finishing touches;

however, there was one decisive feature which distinguished the two artists: the durezza, or

the hard manner, of Cima.73 By contrast, Zanetti considered that Cordella imitated the style

of Bellini’s most beautiful paintings, that is, the later ones, and that his painting of the

Virgin with St Joseph, St Anthony, St Louis and St Francis in the Magistrato dell’estraordinaria

alla dogana del mare displayed the most praiseworthy qualities of the period: warm tones

and softness.74

The stylistic developments which Zanetti perceived in this group of painters

consisted of a better sense of colouring, well-organized compositions, accurately

proportioned figures and bodies, and a smooth transition from light to shadow. Such

improvements clearly separated their paintings from the efforts of Trecento and early

71 Ibid., p. 49: ‘In questa opera benchè chiari veggansi i caratteri ancora del vecchio stile, tuttavia qualche maggior grandezza apparisce; e fa conoscere chi la dipinse, che potea passare l’antica linea, e dar miglior forma agl’ignudi, e comporre con più arte e di grazia di quello che fatto aveano i maestri suoi.’ 72 Ibid., p. 51: ‘spira nel volto e nelli atti santità e devozione. Ottima n’è la ragione del disegno.’ 73 Ibid., p. 61: ‘Non puo essere meglio espresso in essa lo stile, e il vero carattere del Bellino; spezialmente per la diligenza del dipingere, per l’amore, e per la finitezza: conoscendosi solamente il discepolo dal maestro in qualche maggior durrezza.’ 74 Ibid., p. 66: ‘Questo quadro è dipinto nell’ultimo stile e nel più bello di Gian Bellino. V’è in esso calore di tinta e un buon principio di tenerezza.’

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Quattrocento artists and laid the foundations for the new artistic solutions proposed by the

painters of the third group.

Zanetti placed Marco Basaiti at the summit of this group and regarded his Calling of

the Sons of Zebedee as ‘one of the most beautiful paintings of that age’.75 Basaiti’s painting

embodied most of the qualities which Zanetti had already appreciated in other artists from

this period such as grace, charm and truthfulness, but also began to exhibit novel features,

like the delightful landscape in the background against which appeared the silhouettes of

individual figures, defined by light. All the beauties of Basaiti’s brush were united in this

painting, creating a sweet enchantment for the eyes of every spectator – a description which

resembles his account of the reaction of viewers to Carpaccio’s St Ursula cycle.76 Zanetti

observed in some painters of Basaiti’s generation an influence of Giorgione’s style. Writing

of Francesco Bissolo’s Coronation of St Catherine of Siena in San Pietro Martire, he says:

The imagination of the artist who devised this composition was occupied with ancient

images, but not so much as to be unable to give way to new ones. There is spirit and

vivacity and, above all, a taste for colouring which defers to Giorgione’s style;77 but the

whole painting has a warmth which is charming, original and graceful.78

For Zanetti, moreover, Girolamo Santa Croce’s Last Supper in San Martino proves that he

was a disciple of Giorgione and Titian and that he had managed to distance himself from

the older schools.

In his two guidebooks to Venetian painting, Zanetti took the unprecedented step,

for works belonging to this genre, of systematically classifying early painters into groups,

enabling his readers to understand and discern a clearer path of development, governed by

75 Ibid., p. 75: ‘uno de’ più bei quadri di quella età’. 76 Ibid.: ‘Non può essere immaginata questa pittura con più di verità, di grazia, e vaghezza. Il campo in cui vedesi una città in lontano, e più vicino un delizioso colle, da cui si scende a una spiaggia di mare, favorisce a maraviglia il gruppo delle figure, nelle quali sono benissimo disposti i lumi e cominciasi a vedere quell’ultimo consiglio, che passò poi in regola, di raccogliere il lume maggiore sulla principale figura, così esssendo appunto in quella del Signore, che invita a se l’occhio, prima della altre e lo arresta. Tutte le bellezze che avea il pennello del Basaiti, sono unite in questa tavola, che forma un dolce incanto per l’occhio d’ogni spettattore.’ 77 Referring to Giorgione’s manner of painting, Zanetti especially praises his beautiful colouring, his exquisite way of rendering the flesh, the shadows and the outlines; see ibid., pp. 89-90: ‘Acquistò si colore compiuto sapore nelle mani di lui, che arrivò a contraffare la freschezza delle vive carni perfettamente…a render più dolci i contorni delle figure… Abbagliò opportunamente le ombre.’ 78 Ibid., p. 83: ‘Si vede che si pensò l’invenzione di questa tavola avea la fantasia occupata dalle antiche immagini; ma non così che non potesse dar luogo alle nuove. V’è spirito e vivacità, e sopra tutto un gusto di colorire che piega allo stile Giorgionesco; ma che insieme ha un certo calore vago originalmente e grazioso.’

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aesthetic principles, than had been available in previous guidebooks. While the artistic

efforts of the earliest artists were less praiseworthy than those of later ones in terms of their

execution, Zanetti introduced a novel way of appreciating them, by separating the

conception behind the painting from the work itself. In this way, he cast a different light

over these earlier paintings and offered a new justification for their inclusion in a history of

Venetian painting. His judicious assessments of paintings, coupled with a profound

understanding of artistic principles and a good intuition of his readers’ expectations, make

Zanetti’s writings a significant contribution to the historiography of Venetian art. They

provide invaluable insights into how earlier paintings were regarded in eighteenth-century

Venice and illustrate the ‘taste and scholarship’, to borrow Haskell’s phrase,79 of Venetian

writers in the age of the Enlightenment.

79 See F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, New Haven 1980, p. 345.

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CHAPTER 5

Collecting and Connoisseurship

In this chapter, I shall investigate the collecting of early Renaissance paintings in Italy, the

reasoning behind their acquisition and the rise of connoisseurship, focusing on an

important collector and artistic advisor: the Venetian Gian Maria Sasso (1742-1803). In Part

II of the dissertation, I shall discuss a similar figure: the Florentine Francesco Maria

Niccolò Gabburri (1676-1742).1 Although not contemporaries, the two men had shared

interests and approaches to art, especially the art of the past. Both were, for instance,

interested in acquiring and promoting early Italian works of art. Both, moreover, attempted

to write biographies of the most important artists (Venetian and Florentine respectively) up

to their own day, though drawing on different sources; and both failed in the end to

produce a finished work.

Giovanni Maria Sasso and His Network

The Venetian connoisseur, collector, artistic adviser and art dealer Gian Maria Sasso (1742-

1803) (fig. 35) was a leading figure in the Venetian art market. He planned to write

biographies of the most important artists, going up to his own time, drawing on Zanetti’s

Della pittura veneziana (1771).2 He did not, however, manage to complete this work, which

survives in a manuscript in Padua, containing Sasso’s memoirs and a document of 32 folios

on the lives and works of Venetian painters from Guariento to Sebastiano Zuccato, entitled

1 See Chapter 8 below. 2 See M. Magrini, ‘Gian Maria Sasso e Lorenzo Veneziano’, in Hadriatica. Attorno a Venezia e al Medioevo tra arti, storia e storiografia, ed. E. Concina, G. Trovabene and M. Agazzi, Padua 2002, pp. 126-7. An unpublished transcription by E. Cicogna of Sasso’s notes on Zanetti survive in Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Giammaria Sasso nel margine del suo Zanetti ‘Della pittura veneziana’ dell’edizione 1771. For a reproduction and transcription of the document, see Appendix I in vol. II of this dissertation.

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Venezia Pittrice.3 Although transcribed by Raimondo Callegari, the biographies have not

previously been discussed nor studied in relation to Sasso’s memoirs and his

correspondence with English collectors.4 Looking at the book from this perspective will

help to reveal the motivation behind its preparation, as well as shedding light on his

expertise in early Venetian artists. Sasso’s project also involved producing prints which were

meant to accompany his text.5

To gain a full understanding of Gian Maria Sasso, it will be necessary to examine

the catalogue of the works of art in his collection and to situate his understanding of the art

of the past in a broader context. This will help to answer the more general question of how

far collectors and connoisseurs were aware of the theoretical attitudes towards collecting

articulated in their time and, in the light of this, to provide a foundation for constructing

the profiles of other collectors, both in terms of the art works they acquired and the

reasoning behind their acquisitions.

Most of the information on Sasso’s life comes from his Memorie, an extract of which

was published in 1806 by Giannantonio Moschini.6 In a footnote to the third volume of his

Della letteratura Veneziana del secolo XVIII fino a’ nostri giorni, Moschini states that his friend

Giovanni de Lazzara had lent him a book in his own hand, which included a transcription

of Sasso’s manuscript notes. Summarizing the biographical content, Moschini writes that:

Sasso...was born on 13 January 1742 in the parish of San Geremia, where he also died on

25 March 1803. He wrote an autobiography entitled Memoria. In it, he recounts that his

parents were Francesco and Giacomina de’ Rossi. On 11 April 1786, he left his father’s

house without anything to marry Angiola, the daughter of Stefano Rizzi, a satin weaver. He

3 Padua, Biblioteca civica, MS 2538: Memorie di Giovanni Maria Sasso pittore veneziano da lui medesimo scritte con altre sopra alcuni pittori veneziani e padovani, 1804, fols 1r-17r. The manuscript in its present form survives as a copy made by Sasso’s friend, the collector Giovanni de Lazzara (1744-1833); it circulated among a restricted circle of his friends including Gianantonio Moschini and Giacomo della Lena. For the correspondence between Sasso and Lazzara, see Giovanni Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche inedite, Modena 1866, pp. 344-52. For R. Callegari’s transcription, see ‘Trascrizione del manoscritto di Giovanni Maria Sasso, Memorie di Govanni Maria Sasso pittore veneziano da lui medesimo scritte con altre sopra alcuni pttori venezani e padovani 1804, conservato nella Biblioteca Civica di Padova (ms. B.P. 2538), in Scritti sull’arte padovana del Rinascimento, Udine 1998, pp. 296-324. 4 Sasso was in close contact and corresponded regularly with English collectors, consuls and ambassadors, including Gavin Hamilton, John Strange, Richard Wolsley and Abraham Hume, for whom he acted as an artistic advisor; see, e.g., F. del Torre, Lettere artistiche del Settecento, ed. A. Bettagno and M. Magrini, Vicenza 2002, pp. 431-61, and L. Borean, ed., Lettere artistiche del Settecento: Il Carteggio Giovanni Maria Sasso-Abraham Hume, Vicenza 2004. 5 They are now in three volumes in Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr: C2, B 15 bis and B 11. 6 See n. 3 above.

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also studied this craft for some years and then studied drawing, first by himself and,

afterwards, helped by the kindness of Antonio Marinetti and Fabio Canal and, in 1771,

Giovanni Battista Mignardi called on him to assist with his work. He advised James Wright

and John Strange between 1774 to 1786 on their acquisitions of paintings. They supported

him generously and loved him tenderly... Giovanni de Lazzara possesses a transcription he

made of all the records dictated by Sasso for his Venezia pittrice with the summary of the

first part, and what, in short, is most important about our old paintings found among the

writings of that most expert connoisseur.7

Sasso’s notes covered 17 pages and included details of his life between 11 April 1768, the

day of his marriage with Angela Rizzi, and 1800, when, at the age of 65, he was ‘overtaken

by worries caused by hypochondria and continuous studies’.8

In his biography, Sasso not only provided information about his family and

described his unfavourable financial situation, but also supplied significant details about the

beginnings of his activity as art dealer and artistic advisor. He writes, for instance:

I rapidly acquired familiarity with painters of every sort and became an expert; and now,

when I am asked to judge various paintings whose author is uncertain, my opinion is

generally accepted.9

7 Giovanni Antonio Moschini, Della letteratura veneziana del secolo XVIII fino a’ nostri giorni, 4 vols, Venice 1806-1808, III, p. 51: ‘Qui posso con piacere recare alcune buone notizie somministratemi ultimamente dal cav. Lazzara, il quale mi diede a gentile imprestito un libro scritto di suo pugno, onde le potei ritrarre. Intorno a Gio: Maria Sasso adunque, che nacque ai tredici del gennaio dell’anno 1742 nella parrocchia di s. Geremia, ove morì ai venticinque del marzo dell’anno 1803, v’è una Memoria, ch’egli medesimo detto di sua vita. In essa racconta che nacque da Francesco e da Giacomina de’ Rossi, che il dì undici dell’aprile dell’anno 1768 uscì povero di tutto della sua casa per isposare Angiola figliuola di Stefano Rizzi tessitore di rasi, ch’egli pure attese per qualc’anno a quest’arte, che poi studiò il disegno prima da per se, assistito quindi dalla carità d’Antonio Marinetti e di Fabio Canal, che Gio: Battista Mingardi lo chiamò seco nel 1771 ad ajutarlo nei suoi lavori; che il cav. Giacomo Wraight da prima e il cav. Gio: Strange dappoi dall’anno 1774 fino al 1786 l’ebbero seco ad ajutatore negli acquisti, che facevano di quadri, che lo sovvenero generosamente, e che lo amarano con tenerezza, siccome fece con lui ogn’altro della legazione Britannica, finche durò in Venezia. Oltraccio il medesimo cavalier Lazzara possiede da lui trascritte tutte le Memorie, che s’erano dettate dal Sasso pella sua Venezia Pittrice con il Sommario della Prima Parte, e quanto in somma di più importante in argomento di nostre antiche pitture si trovò fra gli scritti di quel peritissimo conoscitore.’ 8 MS 2538: Memorie di Sasso, fol. 16r: ‘ora sono negli anni 65 di mia vita pieno di disturbi cagionati dalla ipocondria, e da i continui studi fatti quasi tutta la mia vita’. 9 Ibid., fol. 8r: ‘presi in breve grandissima pratica degli autori di ogni classe e ne divenni pratichissimo, ed ora

chiamato a dar giudizio di alcune pitture dubbiose che non si conosceva l’autore, ed in ciò fui da tutto compatito’.

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Sasso, however, was still in difficult financial straits, a matter which he touches on

repeatedly throughout his notes; and, for this reason, he organized a viewing at his house,

hoping that he would sell some prints and studies by his own hand.10 The auction, as he

writes, led to a good result, since his art works were bought by the painter Giovanni

Battista Mignardi, for whom he began to work in 1771.11

Other noteworthy episodes from Sasso’s biography include descriptions of his

relationships with the English ambassadors in Venice. He remembers, for instance, the two

prosperous years spent in the service of James Wright.12 As artistic advisor, Sasso would

accompany Wright whenever he desired to purchase a work of art, giving him his expert

advice. For his assistance, he was paid 10 percent of the price of each painting bought on

his recommendation.13 He acted in a similar position for John Strange between 2 September

1774 to 31 October 1786, a period which he considered to be ‘very happy’.14 He was

designated ‘agent’ and ‘director’ of the gallery of paintings owned by the English resident in

Venice and assisted him with every purchase.15 Whether he was in Venice or Paese, a

province of Treviso in the Veneto, Strange assigned Sasso the tasks of selecting the best

paintings for him to acquire and of ensuring their safe delivery. There are 82 letters by

Strange which stand as proof of their long and fruitful collaboration.16

Sasso was not only an art dealer and artistic adviser; he was also a restorer and

collector of both early and modern pieces.17 An inventory of 1803, the year of Sasso’s

10 Ibid., fol. 6r: ‘Mi restavano solo alcuni miserabili avanzi de’ miei studi pittorici, cioè poche stampe, ed alcuni frammenti di miei Disegni i quali cercai vendere ai Professori per quell poco che potevo, ed invitai perciò molti a vederli.’ 11 Ibid., fol. 7r: ‘Providenza del Cielo che venisse il Sig. Gio. Battista Mingardi celebre pittore, ed ora Pubb.co Ispettore delle pubbliche pitture di questa Dominante, il quale mosso a compassione del mio miserabile stato, e sentendomi dal discorso tenuto con Lui informato nelle teorie dell’arte, non ebbe difficoltà di accordarmi subito L 5 venete alla giornata ajutandolo ne’ suoi lavori e questo fu l’anno 1771.’ 12 Ibid., fol. 8r: ‘Steti col sudetto signore per lo spazio di due interi anni.’ 13 Ibid., fol. 7r: ‘Mi conduceva con Lui alle compre che faceva di Quadri ed altri generi...e mi pagava a parte il

10 per cento delle pitture che comprava col mio mezzo.’ 14 Ibid., fol. 11r: ‘Passai gli anni di servizio con Mr Strange molto felici.’ 15 Ibid., fol. 10r: ‘agente e direttore della numerosa sua Galleria’. 16 See A. Dorigato, ‘Storie di collezionisti a Venezia: Il residente inglese John Strange’, in Per Giuseppe Mazzariol, ed. M. Brusatin, W. Dorigo, G. Morelli, Rome 1992, p. 127, and Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr: Epistolario Moschini, ‘John Strange’. Sasso’s letters to John Strange, however, have not been preserved. 17 For Sasso’s activity as restorer, see Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, MS 467: Giacomo della Lena, Spoglio della pitture di Venezia dal secolo XVII fino al secolo XIX, entries 3, 8, 14, 16, 21, 31, and F. Haskell, ‘Some

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death, shows that he owned a great variety of art works including paintings, prints,

drawings, printed books, miniatures, statues, bronzes and vases, displayed all over his house

located at ‘Ponte di Canalregio n. 381 presso il Palazzo Manfrin’.18 The inventory contains

information about the artists, subjects and dimensions of the paintings, as well as the way in

which they were arranged in each room.19 For example, in the portego, there were 87

paintings, most of which were by modern artists of the Italian school such as Giovanni

Battista Pitoni, Palma il Giovane, Tempesta and Niccolò Renieri; but there were also

paintings by Dutch artists including Jan Lys, Joachim Brachen, Philip Peter Roos, and

copies after originals (by, e.g., Solimena, Veronese and Correggio).20 The works were not

arranged chronologically or by subject; and the only earlier piece in this room was a

Madonna with Child, St Jerome and St Augustin by Alvise Vivarini.21 The paintings displayed in

the camerone were also by modern painters and included, among many others, a copy after a

painting by Tiepolo made by Sasso himself and a painting by his own master, Fabio Canal.22

Interestingly, Sasso kept all his originals and copies after earlier masters in his own room.23

These included pictures thought to be by Giorgione, the circle of Giovanni Bellini and

Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Marco Basaiti, Gentile Bellini and Palma il Vecchio. There

were also copies or prints after Raphael and Titian. While this method of display, in which

the early Renaissance paintings were kept separately from later works by modern artists and

were largely accessible only to Sasso and a few privileged intimates, somewhat in the

manner of a private cabinet of curiosities, created a distinction between older and more

recent art works, it is not clear whether it also indicated an inclination on Sasso’s part

towards early paintings.

Collectors of Venetian Art at the End of Eighteenth Century’, in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art, 31, 1967, pp. 173-8. 18 MS Cicogna 5194: Catalogo de’ quadri del qu[ondam] Giammaria Sasso, che si mettono all’ incanto nella sua Casa al Ponte di Canalregio n. 381 presso il Palazzo Manfrin... , pp. 1-31. 19 Ibid., p. 2, entry 9: ‘si passerà a quello de’ Disegni, e delle Stampe divise e distribuite nelle loro varie Scuole, in Cartelle, co’ rispettivi prezzi d’ogni cartella contenente i Disegni, e d’ogni scuola in quanto alle Stampe, e finalmente ad altri pochi oggetti riguardanti le Belle arti notati in fine di questo Catalogo.’ 20 Ibid., pp. 3-8. 21 Ibid., p. 6, entry 64: ‘La Madonna, e’l Bambino con S. Girolamo, e Sant’Agostino, di Luigi Vivarini, con belle Architetture, e Paese in tre comparti.’ 22 Ibid, p. 9, entry 50: ‘Copietta d’una Palla di Tiepolo, fatta da Sasso’, and p. 11 entry 137: ‘Modello quadrato, sottoinsù con S. Domenico di Fabio Canal.’ For the rest of the paintings in this room, see ibid., pp. 8-13. 23 Ibid., pp. 13-17.

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The Correspondence with Abraham Hume

Sasso’s acquisitions for his clients were always discussed and negotiated in advance in

writing. His vast correspondence with the English consuls and ambassadors, as well as his

Italian friends, has survived and is preserved in London and Venice.24 The letters evoke his

personality as well as give an insight into acquisitions, interests the eighteenth-century

Venice.

‘A melancholic’ and ‘hypochondriac’, as he often describes himself in letters

addressed to the English consul in Venice, Abraham Hume (1749-1838),25 Sasso was an

indispensable figure for the collecting world, especially the English one, on account of his

expertise, network of contacts and enthusiasm for Venetian painting.26 His correspondence

with Hume began in 1787 and ended in 1803, the year of Sasso’s death. Some letters

include descriptions, prices and locations or current owners of individual art works which

were offered to Hume but not necessarily acquired. For those which he did buy, there are

details of the transactions and of the transport arrangements. The letters also contain

references to natural history specimens, mainly minerals, which Hume also collected. The

correspondence between Sasso and Hume provides information about their assessments of

and attitudes toward works of art and about their interests. The frequent delays in Sasso’s

responses create suspense regarding the outcome of Hume’s transactions: did he acquire

most of the works endorsed by Sasso, and was he always pleased with Sasso’s

recommendations, acquisitions and price negotiations? Although one needs patience, the

answers to these questions can usually be found in the correspondence.

Sasso, who had access to private collections in Venice and elsewhere, chose the best

works for sale and negotiated prices in his clients’ interest. Very often, he supported his

descriptions of paintings with arguments extracted from writers on art such as Ridolfi and

24 E.g., Venice, Biblioteca del Seminario Patriarcale: letters of Armano to Sasso (MSS 1013.3 and 1038.61), letters of Giovanni Battista Nalesso to Sasso (MS 1033.57), letters of Mario Torlonia and Francesco Pullini to Sasso (MS 666), letters of Antonio Remondini to Sasso (MS 692), correspondence between Sasso and Hume (MSS 565-6); Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr: Epistolario Moschini; and London, National Gallery Archive: correspondence between Sasso and Abraham Hume (NGA 8/1-8/1/144 ). 25 The correspondence between Abraham Hume and Sasso is divided between the National Gallery Archive (NGA 8/1-8/1/144) and the Biblioteca del Seminario Patriarcale (MSS 565-6); see also Borean, ed., Lettere artistiche. I have chosen a number of relevant examples from their correspondence in order to illustrate the idea that Sasso attempted to shape the tastes and direct the preferences of English collectors towards early Renaissance art works. 26 NGA 8/1/16, letter of Sasso to Abraham Hume, 28 April 1788: ‘per solevarmi un poco dalla mia ipocondria’ and ‘mi farà bene alla mia malinconia un poco di distragion’.

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Malvasia.27 Most of Hume’s acquisitions, whether they were paintings or semi-precious

stones, were made through Sasso. In a letter of 20 March 1788, Hume informed him that

he ‘would take pleasure in acquiring good paintings of schools other than the Venetian one,

if there were any available in Venice’. He also added that while he was in Venice, he was

focusing solely on paintings and, therefore, neglecting the specimens of natural history; so

he asked Sasso to procure some of these for him.28

As an art dealer, Sasso bought paintings which he then tried to sell to his clients by

describing them in favourable terms. For instance, he bought a Virgin and Child by Giovanni

Bellini from the Casa Soranza and encouraged Hume to add it to his collection. In general,

Sasso considered Bellini’s manner of painting to be somewhat hard; but this piece belonged

to a later stage of artist’s career, so it looked softer, and the head of the Virgin seemed to be

by Titian.29 Since Hume remained silent about Bellini’s painting and instead showed interest

in works by Tintoretto and Giorgione, Sasso reminded him about it in another letter,

adding information about the price and telling him that although the painting had been

reserved for Gavin Hamilton, he would have priority if he decided that he wanted to buy.30

Hume, however, never bought the painting. Moreover, when Sasso tried to get him to

acquire Bellini’s Christ at Emmaus from the Zanetti collection,31 describing its subject,

27 Extracts from Ridolfi appear several times in their correspondence. Sasso cites Malvasia in connection with the acquisition of two landscapes by Guercino; see NGA 8/1/38, 5 May 1789: ‘Per caso comprai ultimamente due belli paesi dipinti a tempera per il Guercino: l’uno rappresenta la notte a l’altro il tramonto del sole con bellissime figure...e si trovano descritti da Malvasia’; see Malvasia, Felsina, II, p. 368: ‘Rappresentano questi le quatr’hore, o tempi del giorni, cioè la levata del Sole con figurette, che al lido aspettano l’imbarco: il mezzo giorno, maggiormente significato per i viandanti, che lasciato pascere l’erba al cavallo, sotto ad un’ombra pranzano: la caduta del Sole che affretta i cacciatore con la preda di lepri e altro al ritorno in città: e la mezza note con risplendente Luna rimirata da viandanti, per attendere l’hora di loro partenza, mentre un cane a quella inutilmente manda i suoi latrati.’ 28 NGA 8/1/14, Hume to Sasso, 20 March 1788: ‘Soggiungere ch’avrò piacer de far acquisto di buoni quadri delle altre scuole oltre dalla vostra se se ne trovano a Venezia... Quando ero a Venezia fui tanto occupato coi quadri, che il mio gusto per l’historia natural fu obbligato di nasconderci... Ma se potete ancora procurarmi senza molto inconveniendo alcune belle pietre che si tengono l’acqua, ve ne sarei molto obbligato.’ 29 NGA 8/1/10, Sasso to Hume, 21 February 1788: ‘dirò prima di aver acquistato un bel Giovanni Bellino, Vergine e putino col nome del’autore in casa Soranza – e un autore un poco duretto al suo solito ma è de l’ultima maniera cioè della più morbide e la testa della Vergine sembra di Tiziano.’ 30 NGA 8/1/16, Sasso to Hume, 28 April 1788: ‘la mia Madonna di Giovanni Bellino è della migliore maniera alta circa due piedi e mezzo e larga due e mezzo. Tiene il nome de l’autore sotto il piccolo cartellino cioè JOANNES BELLINUS PINXIT. Il quadro è intatto e la testa della Vergine sopra il tutto e Tiziannesca già dipinto in tavola. Circa il preggio mi fa esibito zucchini numero 50 da un pittore romano per portarla a Roma al Signor Hamilton – io non la diedi – se poi serve per Lei io gliela do – al patto che se vede poiche con lei a degli obbligi che non sono indiferenti.’ 31 For the dispersal of the Zanetti collection, see G. Tormen, ed., L’epistolario Giovanni Antonio Armano-Giovanni

Maria Sasso, Verona 2009, pp. 39-54 (‘‘‘Battere il chiodo per li Parmigianini’’: aggiunte alla raccolta grafica Zanetti’).

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provenance and condition, and supporting his positive assessment with a passage from

Ridolfi’s book, Hume was reluctant to pay 200 zecchini for it.32 Similarly, Sasso wrote

enthusiastically about a painting by Palma il Vecchio, ‘much softer than Giovanni Bellini’s,

with a beautiful landscape which resembled Leonardo’s style’, bought for 30 zecchini.

Again, Hume rejected it and disapproved of Palma’s dry and old-fashioned manner, adding,

however, that he would have bought the painting straightaway if it had been by Leonardo.33

Hume preferred paintings by later artists such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Guido Reni,

Lodovico Carracci, Titian, Guercino and Rubens, and he was prepared to pay high prices

for their works.34 Hume was a demanding client, confident about his taste, but nevertheless

keen to get specialist advice in order to buy works in perfect condition.35 He always asked

for precise descriptions of paintings from Sasso. He wrote to him, for instance,

complaining: ‘you speak of a figure by Giorgione without producing a description’.36

For his part, Sasso showed his expertise by responding to such requests with

thorough examinations of works of art. He also made lists of paintings with their prices. An

example of his connoisseurship is the careful and close examination he made of

Tintoretto’s Nativity, which Hume had agreed to buy. After taking a closer look at the

painting, Sasso found it to be less beautiful than it had initially appeared to him from a

32 NGA 8/1/44, Sasso to Hume, September 1789: ‘un quadro grande di figure al natural di Giovanni Bellino rappresenta Christo con li discepoli ad Emmaus. Sono in tutte figure numero 5 alla tavola. Il quadro è intato, nè mai stato toccata. Tiene il nome de l’autore e l’anno 1504 in lettere romane. La maniera è la più grandiose e calda de l’autore e le teste più morbide del solito. Questo quadro era altre volte in casa Cornaro e comprato dalli Signori Zanetti, cioè dal Vecchio Zanetti e citato nel Ridolfi pagina 56: ‘‘in casa Cornaro a S. Maurizio evvi il Signore alla mensa con Lucca e Cleofa di forma al natural dipinto da l’autore in Grazia del Signor Giorgio Cornaro Cavaliere Fratello della regina Catterina’’, vedi Ridolfi come sopra. Il fatto sta che vogliono 200 zecchini ed allora è caro’; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, I, p. 72. 33 NGA 8/1/40, Hume to Sasso, 24 June 1789: ‘Ma per il ritratto di Palma Vecchio temo che sia d’una maniera secca, ed antica. Ditte che somiglia alla maniera di Lionardo da Vinci, se fosse di lui non esitarci a prenderlo.’ 34 I have made a list of all the prices mentioned in the correspondence between Sasso and Hume, whether they refer to earlier or more recent paintings or other collectables such as precious gems or books; see Appendix II in vol. II of this dissertation. It appears that the highest price paid for a painting by Giovanni Bellini was 200 zecchini; the price for the rest of the earlier paintings ranged from 15 to 100 zecchini. The prices for most recent paintings by artists such as Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, Guercino, Lodovico Carracci, Rubens and Castiglione varied between 100 to 500 zecchini. Small paintings, landscapes, drawings and sketches were valued between 15 to 60 zecchini. The price paid for opals was 3 zecchini; and a copy Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie cost 3 zecchini in 1788 and 12 zecchini the year after. 35 See, e.g., Hume’s view of a painting by Tintoretto, in NGA 8/1/46, Hume to Sasso, 11 October 1789: ‘il Tintoretto mi pare che sia stato abbrucciato per da le candele del’altare o dal sole, principalmente nella draperia e nelle ombre che sono quasi intieramente guastati... L’ho deto sinceramente il mio sentimento sopre delle dette cose sapendo che questo vi farà piacer.’ 36 NGA 8/1/47, Hume to Sasso, 12 October 1798: ‘Mi parlate d’una mezza figura di Giorgione senza fare una descrizione.’

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distance. Moreover, he discovered some ‘significant faults’ in the representation of the

hands and the feet, which adversely affected the quality of the painting.37 In this case, Sasso

advised Hume against the purchase, which he, in the end, decided not to buy: ‘I trust your

judgement and your thoughtfulness; I shall no longer consider buying Tintoretto’s painting

anymore.’38 Instead of The Nativity, Sasso suggested another painting by Tintoretto, The

Martyrdom of St Lawrence, which he had bought from the Ca’ Morosini. In order to convince

Hume of its merit, he cites a passage from Ridolfi’s Le meraviglie on the provenance of the

work and its perfect execution.39 In a letter of 23 February 1789 from Hume, we discover

that the painting was in Sasso’s possession, but that its quality did not measure up to his

expectations.40

The examples above allow us to discover two personalities: on the one hand, we

have an enthusiastic connoisseur and artistic adviser who provides detailed descriptions of

paintings which he supports with quotations from the available artistic literature; and, on

the other, a demanding client, with a real interest in art who has clear ideas about the

purchases he wants to make. While Sasso’s attempts – often unsuccessful – to sell early art

works to his clients may have reflected a genuine interest on his part,41 it is possible that

this was primarily a selling strategy, enabling him to establish himself as a dealer of

Renaissance paintings in the Venetian art market of the eighteenth century.

Sasso’s Venezia pittrice and Its Context

In September of 1785, the English consul John Strange wrote to Sasso asking for his

manuscript of Pittura veneta ‘for his own instruction and delight’.42 In another letter dated 10

September 1785, he insisted that Sasso should send him the manuscript without delay and

37 NGA 8/1/14, Sasso to Hume, 28 April 1788: ‘ho ritrovato de diffeti notabili’. 38 NGA 8/1/16, Sasso to Hume, 28 April 1788: ‘E penso che sarà meglio a non prendela’; and NGA 8/1/19, Hume to Sasso, 31 May 1788: ‘come mi confido nel vostro giudizio e dalla vostra delicatezza, non ponderò più al gran quadro di Tintoretto’. 39 NGA 8/1/25, Sasso to Hume, 28 August 1788: ‘Osservi il Ridolfi, pag. 44’; see Ridolfi, Le meraviglie, II, p. 52: ‘una picciola pittura historia di San Lorenzo sopra la graticola, di fierissima maniera, fatta dal Tintoretto.’ 40 NGA 8/1/33, Hume to Sasso, 23 February 1789: ‘che finalmente tenete alla casa vostra il Giorgione e che il martirio di San Lorenzo di Tintoretto non è d’eccellente qualità’. 41 Sasso did, after all, collect such pieces himself and also wrote about them in his Venetia pittrice. 42 See Epistolario Moschini: ‘John Strange’, Strange to Sasso, 20 September 1785: ‘mi faccia avere prima che puolo quell manoscritto suo della Pittura Veneta ultimato come vole evvi, per mia istruzione e piacere’; see Appendix III in vol. II of this dissertation.

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should start working on a description of the paintings in Strange’s own collection.43 Sasso’s

response, however, was not very prompt; and there were a variety of reasons for his delay

in submitting the manuscript; first, he was still gathering information at the time Strange

wrote to him; second, the production of illustrations was a lengthy process; and third, he

had no financial means to get it published. On the last point, Strange offered to help.44

Strange’s letters indicate that Sasso was already working on his project as early as

1785 and that Strange had commissioned the text.45 Moreover, this was not their only

collaboration: Sasso was in charge of new editions of books such as Gaetano Zompini’s

Arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia and Vari Capricci del Castiglione, Disegni del Parmigianino

and Zanetti’s Varie pitture a fresco (1760), which Strange intended to promote in England.46

In this connection, the English resident was keen to pay a high price to acquire Zanetti’s

original edition and to supply the best paper for the production of the prints.47 He also sent

Sasso a list in which he requested six impressions of each print after some of the frescoes

reproduced in Zanetti’s book in order to distribute them, and he made sure that they did

not contain mistakes.48

43 Epistolario Moschini: ‘John Strange’, letter 25, Strange to Sasso, 10 September 1785: ‘Per l’amore del cielo sbrighi e mi mandi quell suo Manoscritto Pittura Veneta, premendomi averla, per travagliare anche alla Descrizione de miei quadri, onde faccia per servirmi’; see Appendix IV in vol. II of this dissertation. 44 Epistolario Moschini: ‘John Strange’, letter 81, Strange to Sasso, 24 September 1785: ‘ella mi accena che l’opera sua e arenata per la mancanza di bezzi, accole in prestito perciò venti zechini se ella poi mi pagherà con commodo a poco per volta, ne la vorrei e.g. di settimana, a ½ zecchino per volta, e come la vuole’. 45 See M. Orso, ‘Giovanni Maria Sasso: mercante, collezionista e scrittore d’arte della fine del Settecento a Venezia’, Atti dell’Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 144, Venice, 1985-1986, pp. 37-55, at p. 42. 46 Epistolario Moschini: ‘John Strange’, letter 18, Strange to Sasso, 19 June 1785: ‘per dare un’idea del libro; poco conosciuto fuori’; see also Orso, ‘Giovanni Maria Sasso’, pp. 44-5. 47 Epistolario Moschini: ‘John Strange’, letter 2, Strange to Sasso, 2 April 1785: ‘pagandolo caro volentieri comprerei il libro Freschi Zannetti specialmente miniati’, and letter 18, Strange to Sasso, 19 June 1785: ‘Bensì la carta di Treviso però grossa al pare di quella Zanetti è consimile anche di grandezza; ma non so poi cosa giudicare di quel liscio e lucidezza che la superficialmente e differente delle altre due mandatemi, ella e li stampatori meglio sapranno, e V. S mi dirà il suo parere di tutto e quale carta giudicano meglio di scegliere, scrivendomi le ragioni. Per la grossezza va meglio la carta di Treviso, ma non so cosa dire di quel liscio, che scompagna, benchè il colore o patina di essa corrisponde anche bene con quella Zanetti.’ 48 Ibid., letter 18, Strange to Sasso, 19 June 1785: ‘Ella mi faccia tirare in carta sottile (da mandare per lettera) e mi mandi sei copie per sorte de seguenti rami freschi cioè: 1. Il ritratto Zanetti; 2. La stampa n. 4 Giorgione; 3. Detta n. 5 Tiziano; 4. Detta n. 10 Tintoretto; 5. Detta n. 19 Zilotto; 6 Detta n. 20 P. Veronese; 7. Detta n. 24 P. Veronese’; and letter 16, Strange to Sasso, 1 June 1785: ‘Sento dell’iscrizione sotto il ritratto Zanetti eppure il non dire sotto dove esista un tale iscrizione sempre mi pare una mancanza; ed io aggiungerei in carattere più minute, ed in una riga staccato sotto come nell’annessa prova; tanto piùche nella memoria in fondo non è citata detta iscrizione al ritratto come in una nota almeno si avrebbe potuto fare; incidendola però sul rame prenderà manco sito, onde Mat. Domini si puole mettere al lungo cosi, Matrio Domini, lasciando però questa come è. Unisco due disegni per lionardis, da ridurre consimile di grandezza e maniera all’annessa stampa, che poi mi si rimanderà, unitamente a detti disegni, che spero riusciranno eccellentemente.’

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Sasso himself was particularly interested in Zanetti’s books. His own work – the

Venezia pittrice – was based on Zanetti’s Della pittura veneziana, for which he compiled a list

of emendations, dating from 1802 – as appears from the first comment on a painting

representing St Donatus in St Donato in Murano, of which Sasso produced a print (fig.

36);49 and the views he expresses in these short notes agree with those found in his own

treatise. The list, made up of 7 folios, has survived under the title of Annotazioni scritte da

Giammaria Sasso nel margine del suo Zanetti della Pittura Veneziana dell’edizione 1771 in a

transcription by Cicogna.50 In the notes, Sasso indicates the pages and lines in Zanetti’s

book which he disputed, as well as his suggested alterations. Generally, Sasso corrects

Zanetti by proposing different attributions of paintings and rankings of painters,51 referring

to other writers in support of his arguments,52 and tracing works of art and their owners.53

There are also four references to illustrations for the Venezia pittrice: a print after Giovanni

49 In tracing the history of the painting mentioned by Zanetti, Sasso refers to its condition at the time he was writing (i.e., 1802); see MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso, fol. 1: ‘Pag. 4, lin. 9. Fu lavata barbaramente per rimadernar l’altare vidi alcuni pezzi in giro maltrattati in quest’anno 1802.’ On page 4, line 9 of his Della pittura, Zanetti does discuss this painting. 50 See n. 2 above. It is still unclear whether the notes for Zanetti’s Descrizione, also transcribed by Cicogna, are by Sasso or Daniele Farsetti; see MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso: ‘Le postille qui manoscritte le ho copiate da un esemplare comunicatomi dal Sig. Giacomo Dalla Lena, che lo trovò ne’ libri di Giammaria Sasso; e forse sono del Sasso medesimo (vedi p. 113). Presso Moschini Di Murano p. 87 sono credute di Daniele Farsetti’; see also Orso, ‘Giovanni Maria Sasso’, p. 53. 51 While Zanetti attributes the painting of Christ Carrying the Cross in SS. Giovanni e Paolo to Luigi Vivarini, Sasso has a different opinion; see MS Cicogna 3042/40, fol. 2: ‘Pag. 13, lin. 8. Non posso persuadermi che questo millesimo sia originale, poichè il quadro è aggiuntato, ed appunto il millesimo è nella giunta, e perciò più moderno, o modernamente fatto’; and fol. 3, for Sasso’s ranking of painters: ‘Pag. 29, lin. 19. Viene riputato Bartolomeo Vivarino per il migliore della Scuola vivarinesca. Ma io lo trovo più secco e più tagliente degli altri tanto nelle prime, che nelle ultime sue opera ed io darei la preferenza a Luigi Vivarino sopra ogni altro di dotta Scuola.’ Here Sasso disagrees with Zanetti’s view that Bartolomeo Vivarini was better than Alvise Vivarini; see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 29: ‘in S. Giobbe nella sagrestia si conserva una bella tavola...opera probabilmente del miglior Vivarino [Bartolomeo]’. 52 Among the writers cited are: Jacopo Sansovino, Scipione Maffei, Flaminio Cornaro, Allegrotto Algretti, Carlo Ridolfi, Ludovico Muratori, Marco Boschini and Antonio Zanetti the Younger. All these authors are mentioned in the Venezia pittrice. See, e.g., MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso, fols 2-3: ‘Pag. 10, lin. 15. [where Zanetti discusses the life of Nicoletto Semitecolo] Sarebbe che la miracolosa immagine della Vergine de’ Miracoli fosse di questo pittore. Il nome, e l’epoca, ed anche la maniera era confrontata con quelli di Padova lo manifesta. Vedi Flaminio Cornaro nella sua opera delle Immagini miracolose di M. V.’; Sasso refers here to F. Cornaro’s Notizie storiche delle apparizioni e delle immagini più celebri di Maria Vergine Santissima nella città e dominio di Venezia, Venice 1761, p. 52: ‘dipingere da un tal Mastro Niccolò Pittore allora assai célèbre l’Immagine della Gloriosa Vergine col Divin suo Figliuolo frà le braccia’. 53 He refers, e.g., to a painting by Antonello da Messina in the collection of Bartolommeo Vetturi, which was transported to London after his death; see MS Cicogna 3042/40, fol. 2: ‘Pag. 21, lin. 15 ... Questo Ritratto di Antonello passo a Londra dopo la morte del N. U. Vitturi, e ciò fu circa il 1779’; see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 21: ‘Nella Galleria di scelte pitture, che per suo nobule piacere formò il Veneziano Patrizio S. E. Sig. Bartolommeo Vitturi, v’è il ritratto d’un Gentiluomo parimente Veneziano, dipinto da Antonello.’

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Mansueti’s St Jerome in the collection of Salvatore Orsetti (fig. 37),54 one after Jacopo

Bellini’s Virgin and Child in the collection of abbott Foscarini (fig. 38),55 one after Jacopo

Bellini’s Entombment in Casa Cornaro (fig. 39),56 and, lastly, one after Gentile Bellini’s

portrait of St Lorenzo Giustiniani (fig. 40).57

Sasso’s knowledge of literature on art is reflected in his own writings, where he

mentions a wide range of books. The evidence I have assembled so far suggests that Sasso

had a good awareness of the published literature on art, especially the works of Zanetti,

Ridolfi and Malvasia, which provided guidance on shaping the preferences of collectors and

influenced what they acquired. Moreover, as appears from two letters by the abbott and

antiquarian Giovanni Battista Nalesso, Sasso intended to buy, either for his own library or

for his patrons, a large number of books on the lives of artists from different parts of Italy,

as well as some books published in the fifteenth century.58 Ridolfi, in particular proved to

be a popular author among English collectors: in a letter dated 30 October 1789, Sasso

54 MS Cicogna, 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso, fol. 3: ‘Da Sr Salvatore Orsetti ritrovassi di questa mano

un S. Girolamo nel deserto, che io feci disegnare, e dare alle stampe.’ 55 Ibid., fol. 4: ‘Da un suo frammento, posseduto dall’abate Foscarini di Padova, feci trarre il disegno, e lo diedi alle stampe’; see also E. Borea, ‘Per la fortuna dei primitivi: la Istoria pratica di Stefano Mulinari e la Venezia pittrice di Gian Maria Sasso’, in Hommage à Michel Laclotte. Études sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, Paris 1994, pp. 508, 514. 56 MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso, fol. 3: ‘Restano pure di questo autore alcuni disegni in Casa Cornaro della Ca’ Grande’; see also Borea, ‘Per la fortuna dei primitivi’, pp. 507-8. 57 MS Cicogna 3042/40: Annotazioni scritte da Sasso, fol. 4: ‘Essendo detta operain gran rovina, ne feci trarreil disegno, e diedi alle stampe il contenuto.’ 58 Epistolario Moschini: ‘Giovanni Battista Nalesso’, letter 123, Nalesso to Sasso, undated: ‘Mi vengono esibiti i seguenti libri di pittura: [Lione] Pascoli, Vite de pittori, scult. Architetti, moderni. Si aggiunge le Vite de pit. scult. archit. perugini, Roma L. 40. Gori Gio., Notizie istoriche degli intagliatori Siena ? L. 21. [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia, Felsina pittrice. Vite de pit. Bolognesi ( ivi ) 1675, L 40. [Filippo] Baldinucci, Notizie de professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua in Firenze 1765, L.56. Opera postuma fogl. Firenze ? L. 16. [Giampietro Zanotti], Storia dell’ accad. Clementina di Bologna, L 40. [Bernardo de] Dominici, Vita de pit. scult. arch. napol. (ivi), 1742, L. 26. [Rafaello] Soprano, Vite pit. scul. archit genovesi, 1754, L 36. [Giovanni Battista] Zaist, Notizie istoriche de pittori scultori archit. cremonesi, 1774, L. 16. [Lione] Pascoli, Vite de pitt.scult. archit perugini, Roma 1732, L 19. Io non conosco se questi prezzi convenghino a questi libri o no, se convengono e che vi servino o tutti, o in parte scrivetemelo’. See also ibid., letter 4, Nalesso to Sasso, 17 September 1788, Padua: ‘Acquistai i libri del Quattrocento da Lei veduti appresso di me, sìcche se ella applicasse all’ Esopo del 1474, ed al Valerio Massimo del 1480 potremo trattare con lettera ed io discenderei a fare tutto ciò che fosse onesto, giàcche del Plinio del 1491 e del Catullo libro e Propertio pure del 1491, ella mostrò di non applicare. Della cronica del [Galeazzo] Gatari, e dei sermoni di. F. Bernardo del...1400, ella mi esibi L. 22, ed io risolvo di darglieli per lei l. 26 se così le piace.’

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informed Hume, who had previously asked him to procure for him a copy of Le meraviglie

dell’arte, that:

Ridolfi is more expensive in Venice than elsewhere because all the copies have been

exported, and here a foreigner pays up to twelve zechini for the book – a terrible price.

Anyway, I found a copy at 3 zecchini for Mr Hoare last year. But now I am behind with the

printing of the Storia pittorica veneta, which everyone is longing to have published, so that it

will be used like Ridolfi and something more, since I leave out all the annoying poetic

touches of this man, and there will be many more interesting things on art.59

In this letter, Sasso touches on two major points: first of all, that there was a demand from

the English collectors for Ridolfi’s book; and, secondly, that he himself was planning to

publish a treatise on Venetian art, more complex than that of Ridolfi, which would provide

collectors with a knowledgeable source on Venetian art.60 As we have seen, Sasso had been

working on the Venezia pittrice as early as the mid-1780s,61 and the letter to Hume confirms

that his project was still ongoing at the end of the decade.

Among the ‘standard’ publications Sasso drew on for his treatise were works by

Sansovino, Ridolfi and Boschini; but he also used eighteenth-century century ones

including Flaminio Corner’s Notizie storiche delle chiese e monasteri di Venezia, e di Torcello tratte

dalle chiese veneziane e torcelliane, published in Padua in 1758, and Giambattista Verci’s Notizie

intorno alla vita e alle opera de’ pittori, scultori e intagliatori della città di Bassano, published in Venice

in 1775.62 His only reference to Verci’s book was in connection with Guariento’s art,

59 NGA 8/1/47, Hume to Sasso, 12 October 1789: ‘Ridolfi su la scuola veneziana è un libro assai difficile a trovar in Londra. Se potrebbe comprarme un esempio a Venezia inviatelomi, ma non voglio accetare quello che vi possediate’; and NGA 8/1/48, Sasso to Hume, 30 October 1789: ‘Il Ridolfi è molto più caro a Venezia che oltre i monti poiche sono stati esportati fuori tutti li esemplari e qui fu pagato Ridolfi da un forestiero sino dodeci zechini, prezzo teribile- ad ogni modo l’anno passato l’ho trovato per Mr Hoare per tre zechini, ma ora io sono dietro a stampare la Storia pittorica veneta che tutti la brama stampata cosi; servirà come il Ridolfi e qualche cosa più poiche lascio fuori tutte le secature poetiche di quest’huomo e vi sarà molte cose più interessanti a l’arte.’ 60 See Borean, Lettere artistiche, p. 10. Even though Sasso informs Hume that he is in the process of printing his book, he was, in fact, still working on the project. 61 See Orso, ‘Giovanni Maria Sasso’, p. 52. 62 For a complete list of writings mentioned by Sasso and arranged in chronological order, see Appendix V in vol. II of this dissertation.

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especially a painted crucifix originally located in the church of San Francesco (fig. 41).63

Sasso cited Corner’s Notizie several times, particularly in relation to a painting by Jacobello

del Fiore which was only mentioned and reproduced in this work.64 We know, moreover,

that he possessed a copy of this book, which was given to him in 1778 by one of Flaminio’s

sons, Pietro Corner, a Camaldolese monk at San Michele in Murano.65 When discussing the

painters who worked in Murano, including the Vivarini family, Sasso referred to Matteo

Fanello’s Notizie storico geografiche di Murano, which was published in Venice in 1797,66 which

shows that these lives were added somewhere between 1797 and 12 May 1802, when Sasso

stopped working on the manuscript.67

Sasso’s draft of Venezia pittrice includes a summary of the first chapter, with notes

on the artists and their works which would have received a broader presentation in the

book itself. His notes, although in a telegraphic form, are of great importance for us, since

they indicate how he planned and organized his material and what sources he was intending

to use. At the same time, they provide a unique insight into the connoisseur’s approach to

art history. They show that Sasso’s intention was to begin his history of Venetian painting

with the earliest examples of art such as the mosaics in St Mark’s basilica and other

surviving fragments of paintings by anonymous artists. The first chapter would include the

lives and works of artists from Lorenzo Veneziano to Antonello da Messina;68 for the

descriptions, Sasso was going to gather information from various writings by Allegretto

Allegretti,69 Marin Sanudo, Scipione Maffei,70 Giorgio Vasari, Carlo Ridolfi, Marco Boschini

63 For the use of Verci’s book in Sasso’s writing, see R. Callegari, Scritti sull’arte padovana del Rinascimento, Udine 1998, p. 304: ‘Il Verci nelle sue Pitture Bassanesi annovera molte opera di tale autore [Guariento], e fra l’altre un Crocifisso... Questo monumento ornava...il maggiore altare della chiesa di San Francesco.’ 64 Ibid., p. 309: ‘Il chiarissimo e benemerito nostro senatore Flaminio Corner ce ne ha datto la Stampa nella sua sacra ed eruditissima opera delle chiese di Venezia, ma l’incisore Pietro Monaco gli diede il gusto moderno non conservando niente dell’antico carattere.’ 65 In the copy held in the Warburg Institute Library, London (classmark: CNH 2025), there is a page in Sasso’s handwriting stating that the book was given to him by Pietro Cornaro in 1779; see Flaminio Cornaro, Notizie storiche delle chiese e monasteri di Venezia, e di Torcello tratte dalle chiese veneziane e torcelliane, Padua 1758: ‘Donatami da S. E. il Padre Pietro Cornaro, monaco camaldolese in S. Michiel di Murano l’anno 1778 à 15 Ottobre. Giovanni Maria Sasso.’ 66 See Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 313: ‘Il signor don Matteo Fanello prete muranese che scrisse le memorie de’ pittori muranesi, e che afferma nel suo manoscritto di aver estratto molte notizie da antichi manoscritti conservati negli archivi di Murano, non ci dice nulla di più di quello aveva scritto il Ridolfi e il Zanetti.’ 67 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 323: ‘Venezia, 12 maggio 1802’. 68 In the work itself, however, Sasso does not mention Antonello da Messina. 69 Sasso refers to Alegretti’s Diario delle cose senesi on two occasions when he discusses the works of Iacobello del Fiore: see Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 297: ‘Memorie tratte da manoscritti di Allegretto Allegretti nel diario delle cose senesi riportate dal Muratori nel suo Rerum Italicarum Scriptores’, and p. 309: ‘Qui però è da

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and Antonio Maria Zanetti. He had also planned to include paintings from private

collections with which he was well acquainted.

There is, however a discrepancy between these notes and the actual content of

Sasso’s manuscript, since many of the painters whom he intended to include were left out.

These were, for the most part, non-Venetian, originally from northern Italian cities near

Venice such as Padua, Verona and Treviso: Altichiero (1330-1390), Sebeto da Verona

(active 1377), Matteo Pozzo, Dario da Treviso (1440-1498), Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506),

Girolamo dai Libri il Vecchio (1450-1503), Girolamo dai Libri il Giovane (1474-1555),

Matteo Pasta, Pisanello (1395-1455), Librale da Verona(1445-1526/29), Giovanni Carotto

(1480-1555), Niccolò Giolfino (1470-1555), but also Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Vittore

Carpaccio (1450-1525), Cima da Conegliano (1459-1517), Andrea Previtali (1470-1528),

Marco Marziale (1492-1507), Benedetto Diana (1460-1525), Il Cordella, Giovanni

Buonconsiglio (1465-1535/7), Girolamo Mocetto (1470-1531) and Antonello da Messina

(1430-1479). For each of these artists, Sasso not only planned to discuss works displayed

both publicly and privately, but also to produce prints after their works.71

In the treatise itself, Sasso’s biographies of artists have gained consistency, and

each of them is presented separately under the short title of Memorie di and the name of the

artist. He sets out the context in which a painting was made, its commissioner (about whom

he also provides details selected from primary sources), the price paid for it, a review of

other writers’ descriptions of the work and, finally, his own assessment of it.72 Such detailed

analyses make Sasso’s manuscript treatise stand out from most previous writings on art,

especially because it was also designed to contain illustrations.73 The prints are now kept in

osservare che San Bernardino non fu ascritto nel numero de’ beati nel 1458 ma bensì nel 1450, come abbamo da Alegretto Alegretti nel suo Diaro delle cose senesi che nota...’ 70 Sasso refers to Maffei’s Verona llustrata on four occasions; see Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, pp. 297, 299, 301 and 302. 71 E.g., Callegari, the modern editor of Sasso’s manuscript, informs us that he produced, among many others, a print after a work by Girolamo dai Libri il Giovane found in the collection of John Strange; see Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 299. Sasso made prints after most of the works owned by Strange; these are illustrated in S. d’Agincourt, Histoire de l’art par les monuments, 6 vols, Paris 1810-1823; see also Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 294. 72 See, e.g., the description of Lorenzo Veneziano’s Lion Altarpiece commissioned by Domenico Lion, where Sasso cites Zanetti; see Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 301. 73 For a study of the context in which the prints were produced, as well as their possible attributions, see Borea, ‘Per la fortuna dei primitivi’, pp. 503-21, and C. Lloyd, Art and its Images. An Exhibition of Printed Books Containing Engraved Illustrations after Italian Painting, Oxford 1975, pp. 75-6. The prints and drawings produced after the paintings of Mantegna and other artists are much discussed in the Lazzara-Sasso correspondence; see Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, pp. 344-55, and Epistolario Moschini, ‘Giovanni de Lazzara’, letter to Giovanni Maria Sasso, 24 May 1802: ‘All’abate Nalesso ho consegnato sino da Sabato mattina il Disegno di Andrea

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three volumes;74 and at the beginning of one of the albums, there is a list of all the prints,

together with the year in which the paintings were made.75

The first account is of Lorenzo Veneziano, whose Lion Altarpiece in Sant’Antonio

Sasso describes in great detail, telling the reader about its subject, commissioner and price.

Since the substantial sum of 300 zecchini was paid for the altarpiece, Sasso considered

Lorenzo to be one of the most highly regarded painters of that period.76 In his preliminary

notes on Guariento, Sasso mentioned only his fresco in the Palazzo Ducale; but he added

two more works in the manuscript treatise itself: a crucifix and a painting with St Michael,

which was bought by the English resident, John Strange. Interestingly, Sasso writes that he

had a print made after the painting acquired by Strange (fig. 42) in order to preserve the

memory of the work before it was transported to Britain.77

Sasso also ranked painters and made comparisons between them, as we can see in

his discussion of Giusto de Menabuoi’s cupola in the baptistery of Padua (fig. 43), which he

considered superior to works by Guariento and even to Giotto since it was ‘painted with

good colouring, with most beautiful heads and beautiful folds, with softness and

expression’.78 For an eighteenth-century collector or reader who was familiar with earlier

writings on art, it would, no doubt, have been surprising that Sasso thought Giusto de’

Menabuoi had surpassed Giotto. This, however, was not the only striking observation made

Mantegna del bel quadro della Vittoria di Mantova ch’ella ha mostrato [?] di fare incidere per unirlo alle altre opera d quel [?] pittore che adorneranno la Storia tanto desiderata dell’antica Veneta Pittura’; see Appendix VI in vol. II of this dissertation. 74 See n. 5 above. For the illustrations, I have chosen volume B 15 bis, which contains impressions of 44 plates; see Lloyd, Art and its Images, p. 75. 75 Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, C2: Nota delle stampe de’ pittori antichi veneti fatte incidere dal Gio Maria Sasso per l’opera Venezia pittrice. 76 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 301: ‘Bisogna credere che Lorenzo fosse in allora uno de’ migliori pittori, se si riguarda al luogo ove fu chiamato, il personaggio che lo chiamò, ed il prezzo che gli fù datto, che fu appunto 300 ducato d’oro, o zucchini, prezzo grandissimo per quei tempi, come lo dimostra Zanetti.’ For the price of the altarpiece, see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 9: ‘prezzo di trecento ducati d’oro’. Here, Zanetti quotes an inventory from 1368 of all the art works in the church of Sant’Antonio; see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 9, n. (**): ‘Si fa esso prezzo per un originale inventario de’ mobili di questo monastero, fatto nell’anno 1368’; see also C. Guarnieri, LorenzoVeneziano, Milan 2006, p. 181. 77 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 304: ‘Una tavola che trovasi in detta cappella rappresentante San Michele arcangelo dipinta a tempera fu acquistata dal fu professor Luigi Calza, che alla sua morte non conoscendone gli eredi il pregio capitò alle mani di S. E. Giovanni Strange ministro britanico il quale la trasportò in Inghilterra, avendone prima io stesso cavato un contorno per conservarne la memoria.’ 78 Ibid., p. 305: ‘L’opera sua per altro più ragionevole, e che merita ancora l’attenzione de’ dilettanti è quella delle pitture del Battisterio vicino al Duomo, essendovene ancora molte di conservate, ed in particolare quelle della cupola con la Gloria del Paradiso, ove si vede quantità di angeli e di beati, dipinta di buon colore, con bellissime teste e bei andamenti di pieghe, con morbidezza ed espressione superiore forse allo stesso Guariento, ed anche allo stesso Giotto.’

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by Sasso. In his discussion of Francesco and Jacobello del Fiore, Sasso states that

Jacobello’s style was inferior to his father’s. Sasso, in fact, is the only writer on Venetian art

to discuss Francesco del Fiore’s works at all, mentioning a little painted altarpiece of the

Virgin and Child with St Jerome and St John the Baptist, dated 1412, which belonged to

John Strange; he also reproduced the work in print (fig. 44). He describes it as ‘most

beautiful for those days; the heads of the saints are full of devout gravity, the folds are rich

and soft, and the whole ensemble is well composed’.79 Sasso also made prints after

Francesco del Fiore’s tomb and its inscription (figs 45, 46).

Sasso not only took inspiration from the earlier writers on art for his Venezia pittrice,

but also challenged some of their assessments. Writing about Jacobello del Fiore, for

instance, Sasso considered his paintings to be very dry, influenced by the Greek or

Byzantine manner, giving as an example a painting of the Virgin and Child in the collection

of Girolamo Manfrin (fig. 47);80 and, on the basis of his examination of Jacobello’s works,

he concluded that Ridolfi, Boschini and Zanetti had overrated his paintings.81 In his

account of Alvise Vivarini, he considered his St Jerome in the Scuola di San Girolamo to be

equal to the painting of Giovanni Bellini and superior to that of Vittore Carpaccio in the

same church,82 praising the ‘beautiful and elegant church’ and the ‘ingenious and well-

situated figures’.83 The church and the figures had been singled out by past critics, but none

of them had claimed that Alvise Vivarini was superior to painters of the calibre of Bellini

and Carpaccio. The specific principles or criteria used by Sasso in rating Alvise so high are

not clear: in discussing other paintings by the artist, for instance, the altarpiece of the Virgin

and Child with St Bernardino, St Francis, and St Louis in San Francesco in Treviso (fig. 48),

79 Ibid., p. 307: ‘Il cavalier Giovanni Strange fece acquisto di un piccolo capitello con i suoi portelli nel quale era dipinto la Beata Vergine che abbraccia il Bambino, con San Girolamo e San Giovanni Battista alle parti, ed abbassi in ginocchio un monaco certosino e nel pedale vi era l’anno 1412... L’opera per que’ tempi è bellissima, le teste de’ santi piene di divota gravità, le pieghe ricche e morbide, e tutto l’assieme ben disegnato e composto.’ 80 Ibid., p. 309: ‘Nella raccolta delle eccellenti pitture del signor Girolamo Manfrin ritrovasi un’antica tavola con fondo dorato in cui e espresso la Vergine che abbraccia il Bambino. Non posso esprimere quanto senta del Greco stile quest’opera’. 81 E.g., Sasso disagreed with Ridolfi’s assessment of Jacobello’s paintings; see ibid, p. 308: ‘Bisogna perdonar se tanto lodava questo Jacobello per tale pittura, la quale dice che fu in allora molto stimata da’ veneziani.’ 82 Ibid., p. 310: ‘Certo è che Luigi Vivarini dipinse in concorrenza di Giovanni Bellino e del Carpaccio nella Scuola di San Girolamo vicina alla chiesa di detto santo... Veramente Luigi in quest’opera non si mostra punto inferior a Giovanni Bellini, e forse porta la palma sopra Carpaccio.’ The paintings by both Bellini and Carpaccio in the Scuola were of St Jerome. 83 Ibid.: ‘In lontano è dipinta una bella chiesa lucidissima che fa campo alle più vicine figure molto ben inventate e situate.’ This work is now lost; see J. Steer, Alvise Vivarini: His Art and Influence, Cambridge 1982, pp. 174-5.

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Sasso merely states that it was one of his best works and was very well preserved.84 He

noted that the attribution of a painting of St Vincent in SS Giovanni e Paolo had long been

debated, with some writers regarding it as a work by Bartolomeo Vivarini, others assigning

it to Carpaccio. He himself insisted that it was by Alvise, and his main argument against the

attribution to Bartolomeo was that his manner was too hard, as well as too affected, for this

painting to be one of his.85 The painting, however, is now attributed to Giovanni Bellini.86

From this misattribution, nevertheless, we learn that Sasso did not particularly like

Bartolomeo’s style and that his tastes and preferences were occasionally distorted by

erroneous attributions.

Another indication of Sasso’s somewhat unusual approach to Venetian art was his

opinion of Andrea da Murano. While Zanetti considered Andrea to be an important figure

in the evolution of Venetian art history,87 Sasso was more reserved in his assessment: even

though the artist could draw with intelligence, and his paintings were better than

Jacobello’s, his style was still far from elegant and noble. He then went on to question

whether any of the painters of this time had displayed these qualities in their works.88

Sasso also showed great interest in tracing the history of some of the paintings he

discussed and the collections which they entered, as well as mentioning art works which

had belonged to the artists whom he discussed. For instance, he recorded an ancient image

representing the death of Ephrem the Syrian (fig. 49) in the collection of Francesco

Squarcione, which might possibly have influenced him and which was later acquired by

abbot Facciolati, who offered it as a gift to Cardinal Livizzani and Pope Benedict XIV.89 He

84 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 312: ‘Io esaminai attentamente quest’opera conservatissima e che credo una delle sue migliori posso dire che rappresenta Beata Vergine col Bambino i Santi Bernardino, Francesco, Luigi ed altri della religione francescana, ed ha nel piedestallo della sedia della Vergine il nome dell’autore.’ 85 Ibid.: ‘non avendo nulla della durezza di Bartolommeo, che era affettato ne’ muscoli, e sempre dipingeva in quella maniera’. 86 See Gamba, Bellini, pp. 69-70. 87 See Chapter 4, n. 55 above. 88 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 310: ‘Sapea disegnare con intelligenza...ma lo trovo poi lontano dall’eleganza e dalla nobiltà; ma quali pittori in que’ tempi si potevano vantar di aver questi pregi?’ 89 Ibid., pp. 320-1: ‘Non è da ommettere che fra le cose acquistate dallo Squarcione vi era una tavola antica greca con la morte e li funeral di Sant’Efrem siro, la quale dopo molti giri e ragiri pervenne alle mani dell’ultimo signor abate Facciolati, che un dono ne fece al eminentissimo cardinal Livizzani dopo la morte del quale passò in potere di S. S. Benedetto XIV.’ Cardinal Giuseppe Livizzani (1688-1754) was named cardinal in 1753 by Pope Benedict XIV; see C. Berton, Dictionnaire des cardinaux: contennant des notions générals sur le cardinalat, Farnborough 1969, p. 1139; M. Becker and C. Weber, eds, Genealogien zur Papstgeschichte, 2 vols, Stuttgart 1999, II, pp. 566-7, and http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1753.htm#Livizzani.

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also informed readers that a print after this image had been used on the title-page of the

third volume of the Roma Sotteranea published in 1754.90 Moreover, Sasso preferred

Squarcione’s paintings to those of Mantegna, stating that even though the folds were

painted with ‘durezza’, the flesh tones were soft and that Squarcione had managed to

distinguish himself from other painters of his generation.91 In order to illustrate

Squarcione’s stylistic qualities, Sasso gave as an example his painting of the Virgin and Child

in the Manfrin collection and made a print of it ‘in order to preserve its memory of such a

praiseworthy artist’ (fig. 50).92 Sasso also included a section on Squarcione’s pupils such as

Dario da Treviso, Girolamo Schiavone and Marco Zoppo; and he, likewise, produced

prints after their works (figs 51, 52, 53).

The last painter discussed by Sasso in the manuscript was Sebastiano Zuccato,

mentioning his painting of St Sebastian with a kneeling figure in a private collection (that of

Pietro Pellegrini), but without giving his opinion (fig. 54).

Because Sasso’s treatise was designed to contain very good quality illustrations of

the works he discussed, it fits into a tradition of illustrated Venetian writings on art,

including Valentin Le Fevre’s Opera selectiora (1682), Carla Catterina Patina’s Pitture scelte e

dichiarate (1691), Domenico Lovisa’s Il gran teatro delle pitture e prospettive di Venezia (1720),

Correr’s Notizie (1758) and Zanetti’s Varie pitture (1760).93

Regarding the fate of Sasso’s manuscript after his death, a number of documents

allow us to trace its history. The first owner was Giovanni de Lazara, who, as he states in a

Also, Livizzani’s nephew, cardinal Carlo Livizzani (1785-1802) dedicated his De gloriosissima Christi Domini Ascensione oratio, Rome 1744, to Benedict XIV (1675-1758), on whom, see M. Rosa, ‘Benedetto XIV’, in DBI, VIII, pp. 393-408. 90 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 321: ‘la di cui incisione serve di frontispizio al tomo 3 della Roma sotterranea stampato in quella città l’anno 1754’. Sasso refers here to Giovanni Gaetano Bottari’s Sculture e pitture sagre estratte dai cimiteri di Roma, 3 vols, Rome 1737-1754, III, pp. 219-36, frontispiece. The inscription at the bottom of the engraving reads: ‘MORTE DI S. EFREM SIRO TRATTA DA UN QUADRO ANTICO DIPINTO A OLIO. A SUA EMINENZA SIG. CARDINALE GIUSEPPE LIVIZZANI POSSESSORE DI QUESTA PITTURA. IN SEGNO D’UMILISSIMO OSSEQUIO. V. LA PREFAZ. DEL TOM. III. DELLA ROMA SOTTERRANEA. DA G. B.’ In the appendix containing an explanatory text about the engraving, Bottari states that the ancient painting was preserved ‘with great diligence and care’ in the collection of the most eminent cardinal Livizzani: ibid., Sculture e pitture sagre, III, p. 219: ‘un’antica sacra pittura, che presso l’Eminentissimo Sig. Cardinal Livizzani si conserva con gran diligenza, e cura’. For the imagery of St Ephrem the Syrian, see J. R. Martin, ‘The Death of Ephraim in Byzantine and Early Italian Painting’, The Art Bulletin, 3, 1951, pp. 217-55, at p. 217. 91 Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 321: ‘è più morbida nelle carni dello stesso Mantegna, le pieghe tengono ancora qualche durezza; ma si conosce quanto egli si distingueva dagli altri’. 92 Ibid.: ‘perchè non resti perduta affatto la memoria di un così benemerito maestro lo feci indifere in rami’; see also Borea, ‘Per la fortuna dei primitivi’, p. 517. 93 See Orso, ‘Giovanni Maria Sasso’, p. 53.

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letter of 1801 to Sasso, ‘had stolen’ the manuscript for two hours in order to transcribe it.94

Six years later, Lazara wrote to Giannantonio Moschini informing him that Giacomo della

Lena owned Sasso’s Venezia pittrice, a manuscript which, as Lazara states, could be helpful

to Moschini’s own work, Guida per l’isola di Murano.95 Moreover, in an undated but

presumably much later note, Lazara wrote that the abbott Daniele Francesconi owned

Sasso’s prints for Venezia pittrice, which he wanted to publish.96 Among them, Lazara

recounted, were reproductions after works by painters from Murano including the

Crucifixion with Mary and John by Andrea da Murano for the Isola da Certosa (fig. 55), the

Blessing Christ by Quirico da Murano (fig. 56), the Virgin and Child by Alvise Vivarini (fig. 57)

and the Virgin and Child with Sts Peter, Andrew, John and Dominic by Bartolomeo Vivarini (fig.

58).97 Fortunato Federici, deputy librarian in Padua and biographer of Francesconi, also

mentioned that the abbott had bought Sasso’s manuscript and prints in Venice, with the

intention of publishing them, together with a work of his own entitled Padova pittrice.98

94 See Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, letter from Lazzara to Sasso, 1801, p. 344: ‘è tale il mio impegno per l’opera ch’ella ha fra le mani della storia pittorica della scuola veneziana, tanto desiderata da tutti gli amatori delle belle arti, che io ho rubato due ore a’miei affari per trascriverle.’ 95 Epistolario Moschini, ‘Giovanni de Lazzara’, letter 1, Lazzara to Moschini, 16 May 1807: ‘ma perche nulla mancasse a questa sua interessante operetta vorei desiderarlo che non fosse omessa nessuno delle opere di quei suoi antichi Pittori raccolte e descritte con tanto merito ne scritti del Sasso, posseduti da Don Giacomo della Lena ch’ella certo ha vedute’. 96 Epistolario Moschini, ‘Giovanni de Lazzara’, letter 57, Lazzara to Moschini: ‘L’Abbate Francesconi acquistò

i rami della Venezia Pittrice, ed ha intenzione di pubblicarli con una illustrazione subito che li occupazioni della Cattedra gli lo permettesse’; see Appendix VII in vol. II of this dissertation. 97 Epistolario Moschini, ‘Giovanni de Lazzara’, letter 57: ‘Tra questi si ritrovano di artefici Muranesi. Il Cristo in Croce con a piedi M V e S. Gio. in atto di dolore nell’ Isola della Certosa di Andrea da Murano. Il Quadro in tavola reppresentante il Salvatore in atto di benedire una pia Donna in ginocchioni a mani giunte de in mi. Nel pedale delle sedia sta scritto “Quiricus da Murano P”. La B. V. con Bambino che con aria ridente sta graziosamente guardandola e sotto vi è scritto in un cartellino – Alvise Vivarin P – Quadro passato dalla Galleria Corer de S. Gio. Decolato in quella del Sig. Girolamo Manfrin. Tavola del Capitolo dell’Isola della Certosa in cinque comparti, in quello di mezzo vi è la V. con le mani giunte adorando il Bambin Gesù dormiente sulle sue ginocchia e dalle parti vi sono li SS Gio Battista, Pietro, Andrea e Domenico, e sotto la Vergine sta scritto Opus Bartholomei Vivarini de Murano 1464.’ 98 See Fortunato Federici, Notizie intorno la vita e gli studi dell’abate Daniele Francesconi..., Venice 1836, pp. 29-30: ‘Un altro acquisto importante avea egli fatto in Venezia da Giammaria Sasso, e fu di molti disegni incise in rame a contorni, e rappresentanti vari dipinti a fresco in Padova, e per opera di Giotto, e principalmente per opera di Andrea Mantegna, nella intenzione di unirli ad altri, ch’egli nello stesso modo fece incidere in seguito (Vedi Moschini, Guida di Padova, Venezia, 1817, in 8, faccia 92) al fine di pubblicarli coll’opera che avea in animo di scrivere la Padova pittrice.’

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Notizie de’ pittori moderni or the ‘Silence’ of the Works of Art

Francesconi also owned a manuscript of Sasso’s biographies of modern artitsts, which he

sold to a merchant called Rizzoli; it was then acquired in 1862 by Vincenzo Lazari (1823-

1864), who made a transcription, which he offered as a gift to Emmanuele Cicogna.99 The

sixteen folios contain biographies of seven contemporary painters: Giovanni Fazioli (1729-

1797), together with his portrait in pencil made by Sasso (fig. 58);100 Giambettino Cignaroli

(1706-1770/2); Giovanni Segala (1663-1720); Girolamo Ferabosco (1605-1679);

Bartolomeo Nazzari (1699-1758); Giuseppe Nogari (1699-1763); and Gregorio Lazzarini

(1655-1730). In writing the biographies – except for those of Fazioli, Cignaroli and

Ferabosco – Sasso drew on Zanetti’s Della pittura veneziana.101 The type of information

provided and the style of writing are different, however, from Sasso’s Venezia pittrice. For

instance, the individual biographies of modern artists are longer than those of earlier ones,

and he does not necessarily focus on describing individual paintings, but rather provides

general comments on the painters’ styles.102 Furthermore, he knew most of these painters

or had heard of them from his father and, therefore, was able to insert personal remarks or

anecdotes; for example, discussing the life of Lazzarini, Sasso recalls that ‘he was one of his

father’s dearest pupils’;103 and, in his biography of Giovanni Fazioli, Sasso mentions that he

owned two of his paintings, which were ‘as beautiful as those by Bassano’.104

99 In a dedicatory note to Cicogna, Lazari writes: ‘V. Lazari prega il suo ch. amico cav. Cicogna di accettare

questi fascicoli manoscritti concernente soggetti artistiche, che ritiene opera lavoro di Giammaria Sasso. Egli li ebbe a Padova dal negoziante Rizzoli nel gennaro 1862, e sospetta fossero già in mano del prof. Francesconi’;

see Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, MS Cicogna 2941: Notizie de’ pittori moderni, fols 1r-18r, at fol. 1r, and

Appendix VIII in vol II of this dissertation, for a transcription. 100 This drawing in graphite has been bound together with the folios of the transcription. There are multiple examples of portraits from Sasso’s hand, mostly in pen, on the back of the letters which he received from various correspondents including those from the art dealer Giovanni Battista Armano; see Tormen, ed., L’epistolario, pp. 383, 408, 440, 475, 484 and 497. 101 The influence of Zanetti is evident in Sasso’s biographies as his name often crops up; see Appendix VIII, pp. 261-70. In the case of Segala, for instance, besides mentioning Zanetti’s name in his description, Sasso also preserves, partially, the order in which Zanetti listed the churches containg the painter’s works; see Zanetti, Della pittura, pp. 414-15 and Appendix VIII, p. 267. For Nazzari, see Zanetti, Della pittura, p. 400 and Appendix VIII, p. 268; for Nogari, see Zanetti, Della pittura, pp. 435-6 and Appendix VIII, p. 268, and for Lazzarini, see Zanetti, Della pittura, pp. 416-22 and Appendix VIII, pp. 268-70. 102 See, e.g., the lives of Giovanni Fazioli and Giambettino Cignaroli in MS Cicogna 2941: Notizie, fols 1r-3r, and 4r-7r. 103 Ibid., fol. 14r, ‘Mi ricordo ancora avere inteso da mio padre, che fu per molti anni alla sua scuola ed uno de’ suoi più cari.’ 104 Ibid., fol. 3r: ‘due quadri grandi bislunghi rappresentanti due Cucine con figure, animali, e masserizie, dove si ammira la bravura, e maestria del Pittore, con artifizio e giuoco tale di lumi, che forma tutto il magico della bell’arte imitatrice: tutto in somma e natura, e verità; tanto belli son questi quadri, come di Bassano, e a me

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In assessing the styles of the modern painters, he discusses colouring, proportions,

light and shading;105 and, in doing so, he introduces new criteria, one of which is the

‘silence’ in a work of art. Referring to Giambattista Cignaroli, for instance, Sasso notes that

it was difficult for him to ‘bring silence into his paintings, as recommended by Annibale

Carracci’.106 He then explains that bringing silence into a work of art means the ability of a

painter to arrange the figures appropriately and harmoniously within the composition, not

inserting more than twelve figures at once. Veronese, however, had ignored this principle,

yet was still, in Sasso’s opinion, one of the most praiseworthy artists.107

Sasso acknowledged a decline in the art of the eighteenth century,108 and he

highlighted the less favourable aspects of works by contemporary painters.109 Nevertheless,

he promoted their stylistic innovations, characterized by beautiful colouring and

luminosity,110 and their attempt to leave behind the maniera tenebrosa.111

Sasso expressed his ideas on Venetian art in his engaging letters and his more

formal writings, which, as we have seen, are at times surprisingly original. A possible

explanation for his striking choices and comparisons between artists, especially in his

piacciono ancor di vantaggio.’ There is no reference to paintings by Fazioli in the inventory of Sasso’s possessions. 105 E.g., he gives an interesting definition of chiaroscuro; see ibid., fol. 6r: ‘l’oscuro maggiore; che è quello appunto che da un bravo pittore si dee cercare nel colorire una tela; altrimenti non raccogliendo il lume e lasciandolo qua e poi disperso, apparisce, con sommo disgusto dell’occhio erudito, languido, smorto e delavato’. 106 Ibid., fol. 5: ‘In somma si affaticò molto per portare quell silenzio su’ quadri tanto raccomandato da Annibale Carracci il quale pensava che non si potessero mettere su d’una tavola più di 12 figure senza perderlo.’ I have not been able to identify Sasso’s source for the idea of ‘silence’ in painting; however, in the same biography, Sasso makes a reference to Pier Zagata’s chronicle explaining that Cignaroli wrote a series of biographies of Veronese artists. In the section on the Veronese painters of Zagata’s work, and, more precisely, in the life of Alessandro Turchi or Orbetto – a painter otherwise mentioned by Sasso as Cignaroli’s master – there is another expression attributed to Annibale Caracci, this time referring to the manner in which the painter depicted the flesh; see Pier Zagata, ‘Supplementi alla cronica di Pier Zagata dedicati a sua eccellenza il sig. Gianpietro Dolce’ in Cronica della città di Verona, 2 vols, Verona 1749, II, p. 214: ‘E giacchè di questa opera insigne prendemmo à far parole, s’osservino quelle mani e piedi, che più veri più disegnati certo far non si possono. E pare (per usar l’espressione d’Annibale Caracci) che il nostro Alessandro abbia macinato carne umana; mentre l’occhio stesso s’inganna, e par che veda il sangue scorrere per le vene, essendo sparso su le carni un color vivo, un non so che di pingue tinta, che direi che quasi fumanti, e al tutto pastose le rende.’ 107 MS Cicogna 2941: Notizie, fol. 5r: ‘in che è da ammirarsi sommamente il Veronese, che seppe serbare questo raccomandato silenzio sebbene portò su suoi quadri prodigiosa quantità di figure’. 108 Ibid., fol. 14r: ‘In questi torbidi tempi, pregiudicievoli all’arte.’ 109 Ibid., fol. 13r: ‘ma per loro capriccio fecero qualche cosa istoriata di merito mediocre’. 110 Ibid., fol. 10r: ‘Si fece una maniera sua tutta nuova, gustosa nel colorito con bell’impasto vaghezza e felicità di pennello.’ 111 Ibid., fol. 15r: ‘Il Lazzarini...ed ha il merito di avere aperto gli occhi a’nostri artefici, di aver del tutto cacciata la maniera tenebrosa, e adottata una natura più vera, e più scelta.’

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Venetia pittrice, could be that he was writing on commission about paintings in a private

collection – that of his friend and client, John Strange – and, therefore, his mission was to

promote and describe paintings in a way that would please Strange. It is difficult,

consequently, to determine Sasso’s own preferences. The same problem arises in

interpreting his correspondence with Hume, in which Sasso’s role was that of a

connoisseur, who needed to maintain his reputation as a respectable art dealer on the

Venetian art market by suggesting a variety of high quality works for acquisition.

Occasionally, he recommended paintings by Renaissance artists which his clients did not

particulary favour, despite Sasso’s repeated attempts to convince them that they deserved to

be collected for their beauty and on account of the artist’s reputation. Both in his

correspondence and in his treatise, he refers constantly to previous writers on Venetian

painting, which provides further evidence of the close connection between art literature and

the activity of collecting.

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Preliminary Conclusions

The first part of this dissertation, dealing with Venetian artistic literature between the

sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, has produced some interesting preliminary conclusions

about attitudes towards the art of the past. The starting-point of my investigation was to

identify the main questions which needed to be addressed in approaching these texts. In

this regard, I was interested in the type of information the Venetian writers provided about

late medieval and early Renaissance paintings, whether they were selective, critical or

laudatory, and whether their views helped to encourage a preference and desire for

collecting such paintings. Another concern of my research was to observe whether attitudes

towards particular artists and their works changed from one writer to the other and, if so,

how each view influenced and contributed to a growing interest in early Renaissance art

before the nineteenth century.

The first signs in the sixteenth century that there was an interest in discussing earlier

paintings appear in Francesco Sansovino’s writings. By making a distinction between

‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ works of art, Sansovino began to carve out a path to the recovery of

the artistic past. True, his accounts were not very substantial; but his aim was to document

lost works by Venetian painters of previous generations and to draw attention to a number

of stylistic features in works by those artists he most valued, including Marco Basaiti, Cima

da Conegliano, Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio. Sansovino singled out for praise the

beauty of the paintings, the charming and graceful figures, the colours and the harmonious

compositions.

The alterations made to Sansovino’s writing by later editors included significant

additions of earlier paintings which had been omitted from the original. The second edition

of Sansovino’s book contained an amplified description of the basilica of San Marco and

records of various works, by earlier painters such as Lazaro Sebastiani, Giovanni Bellini,

Cima da Conegliano and Vincenzo Catena, as well as by more recent ones including Sante

Peranda, Tintoretto and Veronese. The third edition is distinguished by its more elaborate

accounts, which allow us to extract a richer array of information on earlier paintings and

their reception. Even though Sansovino’s book and its subsequent editions were not

exclusively focused on earlier art – the nature of these writings invites a more general and

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comprehensive approach – they raised an awareness towards paintings by earlier artists, and

some of the accounts allow us to detect preferences for some of the paintings described.

As new guidebooks and biographies were published and republished in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,1 descriptions of paintings began to gain in

consistency, a new artistic terminology developed and the criteria for assessing the works of

art were defined more clearly. Three main lines of interpretation of late Trecento and

Quattrocento Venetian paintings evolved. Judgements, firstly, could be based on historical

grounds. This was the case for some of the early anonymous Venetian paintings and some

of the lost paintings of the Palazzo Ducale. The main representative of this approach was

Sansovino. Secondly, judgements were made on artistic grounds. Marco Boschini and

especially Antonio Maria Zanetti employed a specific artistic vocabulary and referred to

aesthetic qualities in their evaluations of paintings. Thirdly, there were religious grounds.

Carlo Ridolfi, for instance, at times suggested that early paintings were highly esteemed for

their ability to arouse devotion in viewers.

It has also emerged that the opinions of seventeenth-century Venetian writers on art

were standardised. Both Ridolfi and Boschini appreciated more or less the same paintings

and painters, pointing out various aspects which they considered most worthy of praise.

Among the Trecento artists most frequently praised for their contribution to the

development of Venetian painting and the course of art history, despite the ‘hard’

appearance of their works, were Guariento, Lorenzo Veneziano and Jacobello del Fiore.

Among Quattrocento artists, the leading figures were Luigi and Bartolomeo Vivarini,

Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, Marco Basaiti and Girolamo Mansueti. It

was generally agreed that Giovanni Bellini was the pioneering figure for the early history of

Venetian painting: Bellini was considered to be the painter with whom Venetian painting

began properly. Ridolfi, for instance, pointed out that Bellini distinguished himself from his

predecessors through his softer, more mature style and his pious figures. Boschini also

ranked Bellini’s paintings very highly and considered him a better painter than Raphael. In

the writings of both Ridolfi and Boschini, we can observe, in line with Vasari’s view, a

crescendo, an evolution of style. They both aimed to present paintings which were on public

or, very rarely, on private display, occasionally accompanied by critical assessments, which

1 For an overview of the Venetian guidebooks in the seventeenth century, see Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 531-2.

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were intended to shape the taste of art lovers. The comparisons between different painters

were made in order to rank them and to indicate the models to be valued and emulated by

later painters. It is not always evident whether Ridolfi and Boschini are expressing their

own personal taste and preferences or, instead, carrying on a growing tradition of

interpreting Venetian painting. They do, however, point out criteria for judging paintings

and state why some painters deserved more attention and praise than others.

It was not, however, until the eighteenth century that views on early Venetian

painting began to crystalize, and the appreciation for past art was expressed more

coherently. The author who had the most comprehensive and coherent view of the art of

the past was Zanetti. Careful to select only those painters whose works corresponded to the

criteria which he set out in his writings, Zanetti explicitly justified his classifications of

artists of the past. He divided them into four groups according to their style, based on his

strict criteria of evaluation. A good painter, in his opinion, was one whose compositions

embodied appropriateness, naturalness, charm and gracefulness. Within each category of

artist, Zanetti identified the key figures and the elements which rendered their works

outstanding. The novelties found in his writings are primarily his fresh judgements on early

Renaissance paintings and his structured, clear and rigorous aesthetic principles, which were

meant to function as guidelines for his readers. His writings were the first to exert a

significant influence on the course of Venetian artistic historiography and on the history of

taste.

Naturally, there were different levels of interest in early paintings; nevertheless, we

have seen that these works of art were continually discussed and assessed, even if this was

just as a way of expressing local pride or antiquarianism (which developed more towards

the end of the eighteenth century) rather than a concerted attempt on the part of writers on

art to cultivate a taste for earlier works among readers.

I have also considered collectors and connoisseurs, in order to see whether their

purchases were influenced by the arguments conveyed in these works. Here the key

Venetian figure, both in his own writings and in his acquisitions, was Giovanni Maria Sasso.

An art dealer who sent enthusiastic letters to English collectors in which he used quotations

from Venetian writers on art to encourage his clients to make particular purchases, Sasso

was also interested in the Venetian art writings from a scholarly point of view. Alessandro

Longhi’s portrait of Sasso, made in 1790 (fig. 35), depicts him in a sober and official pose,

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wearing an elegant buttoned coat with flowing drapery over his shoulders, holding a writing

instrument in his right hand and, with his left hand, supporting a volume containing prints.

The volume alludes to Sasso’s Venezia pittrice, and the sitter’s pose indicates that he was an

intellectual. In addition to the large number of books on art which he intended to purchase

or already owned, Sasso also produced and emended new editions of such works, whether

on commission or for his own use. Moreover, his Venezia pittrice drew heavily on his

predecessors, especially Zanetti, if only to distance himself from some of their judgements.

That Sasso sought to promote a taste for early Renaissance paintings is apparent

from the way he planned and compiled his material for Venezia pittrice. His biographies,

which were written at different stages and can be dated according to the publications on

which he drew, included only painters who lived between approximately 1350 and 1530.

One reason for this limited choice of painters and restricted timeframe is that the work was

commissioned by the private collector John Strange and was intended to publicize his

collection of early paintings and that of other Venetian collectors. While in previous books

on Venetian art, such as those by Ridolfi and Zanetti, the main emphasis was on publicly

displayed paintings, in Sasso’s biographies there is a shift towards privately owned works.

He, for instance, mentions fifteen paintings which belonged to private collections, none of

which were referred to by Ridolfi in his accounts of the same artists. Clearly, Sasso did not

intend to write a guide for visitors to Venice; instead, his work provided information on the

history of collecting early paintings, with details on the provenance and ownership of these

works.

Strange’s collection, though particularly strong in Quattrocento paintings, ranged

from works by Guariento to the Italian vedutisti of the eighteenth century.2 His

chronological display of these paintings reflected eighteenth-century tendencies in

collecting,3 enabling viewers to see an evolution in style over time and served as an

illustrated historical overview of Venetian painting. One of the earliest and most famous

collectors from northern Italy was Padre Carlo Lodoli (1690-1761). A monk, patron of the

2 Dorigato, ‘Storie di collezionisti a Venezia’, p. 127. From the Christie’s sale of Strange’s collection on 5 February 1856, we know that he owned 256 objects in total, of which 42 were paintings and 16 were drawings; see F. Lugt, Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques, 4 vols, Hague 1938-1987, II, no. 22828. 3 The collections of Carlo Lodoli, Jacopo Facciolati and Farsetti were also displayed in this way; see Callegari, Scritti sull’arte, p. 291. Another significant case was Francesco Algarotti, who also adopted a historical view on displaying works of art and based his analyses and choice of works mainly on stylistic grounds; see Haskell, ‘Francesco Algarotti’, in Patrons and Painters, pp. 347-60.

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arts and mathematician, whose theories on architecture were transmitted through his pupil,

Andrea Memmo,4 Lodoli possessed an impressive collection of Italian (Venetian,

Florentine, Roman and Bolognese), German and Flemish works of art.5 His method of

displaying his collection was based two criteria: chronology and schools.6 These principles

show a historical approach and a good understanding of the development of painting and

its progress.

Another important collector who applied the same criteria of display was Sasso’s

client and neighbour, Girolamo Manfrin.7 A wealthy businessman who earned his fortune

by holding a monopoly of tobacco plantations in Dalmatia,8 Manfrin assembled a collection

of 400 paintings.9 He took advice from connoisseurs and painters like Pietro Edwards,10

Giovanni Battista Mingardi and Sasso, giving them strict instructions regarding the

acquisition of his paintings.11 He insisted on having the best pieces in his collection which

were acquired after a rigorous process of selection carried out by his advisers.12 Such an

environment inspired Sasso and led him to encourage other collectors such as Strange to

adopt similar principles. Sasso’s chronological presentation of early painters, highlighting

works from Strange’s collection, both enhanced the Englishman’s reputation as a collector

and gave Sasso the opportunity to demonstrate his expertise as a connoisseur and advisor

on art. He turned to reference books in order to document each work of art. From

4 Andrea Memmo, Elementi di architettura lodoliana, ossia l’arte del fabbricare con solidità scientifica e con eleganza non capricciosa, Rome 1786; for more information on Lodoli’s life, see Haskell, Patrons and Painters, pp. 300-21, and S. Kaufman, Francesco Algarotti: The Elegant Arbiter of Enlightenment Architecture, 2 vols, London 1998, I, pp. 161-5 (‘The Life of Carlo Lodoli [1690-1761]’). 5 Previtali, La fortuna, pp. 220-1. 6 Ibid., p. 221. 7 Manfrin’s residence on the Canareggio was bought in 1787 of the Vernier family; see Haskell, Patrons and Painters, p. 379. 8 Ibid. 9 For an inventory of Manfrin’s collection of paintings following the order in which they were displayed in each room, see F. Zanotto, Nuovissima guida di Venezia e delle isole della sua laguna, Venice 1856, pp. 340-7. Besides paintings, Manfrin’s collection also included prints, precious gems and naturalia; see Borean, ‘Il caso Manfrin’, in Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Settecento, ed. L. Borean and S. Mason, Venice 2009, pp. 193-217. 10 Born to a family of Catholic English emigrants in Italy, Pietro Edwards (1744-1821) was a painter, restorer and member of the Venetian Academy. He was in charge of the restoration of the ceiling of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Palazzo Ducale in 1777; see S. Rinaldi, ‘Pietro Edwards’, in DBI, XLII, pp. 296-8. 11 For other examples of collectors of early Renaissance works of art from the Veneto including the Marchese Tommaso degli Obizzi (1750-1803) with whom Sasso was also in contact, Teodoro Correr (1750-1830) and Girolamo Ascanio Molin (1738-1814), see Tormen, ‘Tommaso degli Obizzi’, in La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte, pp. 329-33, L. Caburlotto, ‘Teodor Correr’ in La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte, pp. 355-6, and Caburlotto, ‘Girolamo Ascanio Molin’, in La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte, pp. 373-6 12 In a letter of 3 December 1793 to Edwards, Manfrin gave clear instructions about the works of art he wanted in his collection: ‘io voglio che non entrino nella mia collezione che opere di reale merito ed assoluto’; see Haskell, ‘Appendix 7’, in his Patrons and Painters, p. 395.

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Strange’s collection, he chose to describe paintings by Guariento, Francesco del Fiore and

Carlo Crivelli. He also included other early works in the collections of Lodovico Maffei,

Filippo Ercolani and Girolamo Manfrin, all of which were well documented.

The manuscript of Venezia pittrice provides further evidence of Sasso’s interest in early

paintings. He devoted particular attention to those early works which were not on public

display, either because they belonged to a private collector or because they had ended up in

a collection outside Venice and he wanted to preserve their memory for future generations

by producing prints. Like Ridolfi, Sasso identified a number of elements in early paintings

which he most appreciated such as the ‘devout gravity’ and expressiveness of the figures,

the beautiful rendition of heads and the harmoniously arranged compositions. Yet Sasso’s

aim was to surpass Ridolfi; and, in attempting to do so, he mentioned works which had

been omitted by his predecessor and by other writers, as well as promoting private

collections and demonstrating his authority by suggesting his own rankings of artists and

his own assessments of their works. The correspondence documenting the history of

Sasso’s manuscript after his death shows that he succeeded in producing a reference work,

even though it was not published.

Finally, Sasso looked back at previous Venetian writers on art in order to challenge

their assessments, to make corrections and to suggest new attributions. Within the

framework of a continuing interest in the paintings of earlier generations, Sasso, to a certain

extent, altered the canons established by his predecessors in his new ranking of artists and

in the way in which he assessed their paintings. As we have seen, he suggested surprising

comparisons between works of art and between the styles of painters, indicating that he

wanted to distance himself from his predecessors and rewrite the history of Venetian art.

Neither Boschini nor Zanetti would have claimed that a work by Giusto de’ Menabuoi was

more valuable than one by Giotto or that some of Alvise Vivarini’s paintings were equal or

superior to those of Giovanni Bellini or Carpaccio. Even though Sasso’s attempts to

convince English collectors to purchase early Venetian paintings were backed up with solid

arguments taken from his predecessors, he sometimes failed to persuade them. This was

probably due to the preferences of his clientele. Hume, for instance, greatly valued his

expertise; nevertheless, his own taste was for more recent paintings, and he sought Sasso’s

advice mainly in relation to such works.

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It is noteworthy that Sasso’s attitude towards early Italian art in his correspondence

with English collectors and in the manuscript of Venezia pittrice remained consistent, even

though he was writing for different purposes: on the one hand, to sell and promote specific

paintings on the art market; and, on the other, to carry out, in a well-documented and

scholarly manner, a private commission. Sasso’s artistic views and knowledge were built on

a tradition which went back to the earliest Venetian writings on art and to which he added

an original touch, complemented by his expertise in art dealing and collecting.

The art literature produced in Venice from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century,

which has been surveyed in the first part of this dissertation, reflects a largely consistent

assessment of early Renaissance art. Earlier paintings did not cease to arouse the interest of

writers on art, whether for their devotional power or for their artistic qualities. There seems

to have been a consensus among Venetian writers, with the exception of Sasso, that the

most excellent early Venetian painters were Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio and Marco

Basaiti. What changed, however, were the criteria on which their works were assessed and

the reasons for which particular works were favoured over others. The Venetian art

writings examined here were a significant source for the development of views and attitudes

towards early Renaissance painting and also show that there was no gap between the

theoretical appreciation of art and the practical activity of collecting.

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PART TWO: FLORENTINE ART WRITINGS

Introduction

... e di vero spirano tutte le sue pitture santità e divozione.1

Like Venice, Florence produced a wide spectrum of writings on art, ranging from

guidebooks and biographies of artists to chronicles.2 Some of the earliest accounts of the

history of Florence, dating from the fourteenth century, contained sections on artists, as

well as politics and literature; and this tradition continued into the following centuries.

Among the most representative works of this type were Filippo Villani’s De origine civitatis

Florentiae et eiusdem famosis civibus of 1364,3 Cristoforo Landino’s ‘proemio’ to his Comento

sopra la Comedia di Dante Alighieri (1481)4 and Ugolino Verino’s De illustratione urbis Florentiae

(1583).5

Filippo Villani’s section on art in his cronicle, for instance, starts with a paragraph

about the beginnings of painting and continues with a short discussion of five artists:

Cimabue (1240-1302), Giotto (1266/67-1337), Giottino (1324-1369), Stefano Fiorentino

(1301-1350) and Taddeo Gaddi (1300-1366?).6 In each case, Villani makes brief general

comments about their fame and achievements: he praises the early artists starting with

Cimabue for ‘reviving the art’,7 Giotto for taking it to perfection,8 Giottino for painting

1 Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza, Florence 1591, ed. J. Shearman, Farnborough 1971, p. 8; see also Francesco Bocchi, The Beauties of the City of Florence. A Guidebook of 1591, ed. and transl. by T. Frangenberg and R. Williams, London 2006, p. 28: ‘Indeed, all his paintings breathe sanctity and devotion.’ 2 For a complete bibliography of the most important Tuscan writings on art, see Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 585-93. For a study centred on biographies of artists before the publication of Vasari’s Le vite, see G. Tanturli, ‘Le biografie d’artisti prima del Vasari’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista. Atti del Congresso internazionale nel IV centenario della morte, Arezzo-Firenze, 2-8 settembre 1974, Florence 1976, pp. 275-98. Tanturli discusses sources which refer to both Florentine and non-Florentine artists, including Filippo Villani, De origine civitatis, Michele Savonarola, Libellus de magnificis ornamentis, Bartolomeo Fazio, De viris illustribus liber and Antonio Manetti, Vita di Filippo di ser Brunellesco. 3 Filippo Villani, Liber de civitatis Florentiae, ed. G. Galletti, Florence 1867. 4 Cristoforo Landino, Comento sopra la Comedia, ed. P. Procaccioli, 4 vols, Rome 2001. 5 Ugolino Verino, De illustratione urbis Florentiae (Paris 1583), 2 vols, Paris 1780. The 1583 edition of Verino’s poem was published posthumously. The work circulated in manuscript form much earlier; see A. Lazzari, Ugolino e Michele Verino. Studii biografici e critici, Turin 1897, pp. 185-9. 6 Villani, Liber de civitatis, pp. 35-6 (‘De picturibus’). 7 Ibid, p. 35: ‘egregios pictores Florentinos…qui artem…suscitaverunt’. 8 Ibid.: ‘in pristinam degnitatem nomenque maximum picturam restituit’. This passage on Giotto is the longest and the only one in which Villani mentions specific works: a mosaic representing the Navicella in San Pietro in Rome and the portrait of Dante in the Chapel of the Palazzo del Podestà; see ibid.: ‘in foribus ecclesiae Sancti

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with ‘marvellous and incredible beauty’,9 Stefano for imitating nature and for his ability to

render human anatomy,10 and Gaddi for painting buildings with great skill.11

Landino, in a short section on art from the ‘proemio’ to his Dante commentary,

surveys Florentine painters and sculptors. In the introduction, he discusses the origins of

painting from the Egyptians to the Greeks and the Romans. This is followed by accounts

of artists from Giotto to Antonio (1427-1478/1481) and Bernardo Rossellino (1409-

1464).12 While those on Cimabue, Giotto and his followers are taken directly from Villani,

the ones about more recent artists are by Landino himself. 13 Rather than expressing his

own taste, however, he merely points out the different features for which each of the artists

was admired. For instance, he draws attention to Masaccio’s life-like compositions, without

embellishment,14 ‘the compositions and variety, colour, relief and ornaments of every sort’

in Filippo Lippi’s works,15 and Fra Angelico’s facility in producing works of ‘charm,

devoutness and much embellishment’.16 Among the characteristics which Landino

highlights in Florentine architects and sculptors were the understanding of perspective,

order, variety and grace, as found in the works of Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello,

Desiderio da Settignano, Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino.17

In Ugolino Verino’s celebratory poem about Florence, only a few verses are

devoted to local art from Giotto to Filippo Brunelleschi. Interestingly, however, Verino

Petri trans Tiberim, musaico periclitantes navi Apostolos’, and p. 36: ‘Pinxit...Dantem, in tabula altaris Capellae Palatti Potestatis.’ 9 Ibid., p. 36: ‘pinxit mirabili et incredibili venustate’. 10 Ibid.: ‘Stephanus, dictus naturae simia, tanta ejus imitatione valuit, ut etiam, physicis in figuratis per eum corporibus humanis, arteriae, venae, nervi, et quaeque minutissima liniamenta proprie colligantur.’ 11 Ibid.: ‘Thaddeus insuper aedificia tanta arte depinxit.’ Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, pp. 66-78 (‘Filippo Villani and the Pattern of Progress’), at pp. 74-5, discusses Villani’s ‘humanist art-criticism’, analysing the vocabulary and categories he applied when referring to Trecento artists. Baxandall observed that terms such as naturae simia, ars, exemplaria, ingenium and natura were characteristic of the humanist literature and that Villani had borrowed them from Giovanni Boccaccio and Coluccio Salutati. 12 Landino, Comento, I, pp. 240-2. 13 See B. Wierda, ‘The True Identity of the Anonimo Magliabechiano’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 53, 2009, pp. 157-68, at p. 157, n. 2. 14 Landino, Comento, I, p. 242: ‘Fu Masaccio optimo imitatore di natura...sanza ornato.’ For an analysis of Landino’s five artistic terms used to describe Masaccio’s works and style (imitatore della natura, rilievo, puro sanza ornato, facilità and prospectivo), see Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, pp. 109-52 (‘Pictures and Categories’), at pp. 118-28. 15 Landino, Comento, I, p. 242: ‘Philippo gratioso et ornato et artificioso sopra modo: valse molte nelle compositioni et varietà, nel colorire, nel rilievo, ne gl’ornamenti d’ogni sorte’; see Baxandall, Painting and Experience, pp. 128-39. 16 Landino, Comento, I, p. 242: ‘Fra Giovanni Angelico et vezoso et divoto et ornato molto con grandissima facilità’; see Baxandall, Painting and Experience, pp. 147-50. 17 Landino, Comento, I, p. 242.

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compares various early artists to ancient ones: Botticelli to Zeuxis,18 Andrea del Verocchio

to Lysippus and Perugino to Apelles.19

These works, while not focused directly on Florentine art, are nevertheless

important for the development of the views expressed in later texts. They laid the

foundation for a group of writings aimed at promoting, and shaping attitudes towards,

Florentine art: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s I commentarii,20 Il libro di Antonio Billi and the Anonimo

Magliabechiano,21 Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite (1550 and 1568), Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo

(1584)22 and Filippo Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ professori del disegno (1681-1728).23 These texts are

written in the form of biographies or, in the case of the first two, lists of works of art, with

pre-eminence given to Florentine artists in an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of

local art over that of other Italian cities. Some writers included paintings by Florentine

artists in towns outside Florence or Tuscany, as well as biographies of non-Italian artists

who were active in Florence.

The second of Ghiberti’s four Commentarii is devoted to ‘modern’ art.24 It contains

short biographical notes on artists from Giotto to Ghiberti himself, who are arranged

chronologically and divided into groups. He begins with Florentine painters: Giotto and his

followers (Stefano, Taddeo Gaddi, Maso, Buffalmacco), Andrea Orcagna and continues

with the Roman artist Pietro Cavallini. These are then followed by Sienese painters:

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Duccio. Ghiberti also includes sculptors: Andrea

Orcagna, Giovanni and Andrea Pisano and the Master of Cologne. He concludes with his

own autobiography, the only account of a living artist in the Commentarii.25 That Ghiberti

decided to concentrate on artists of the past is significant from a historical point of view,

and his assessment of Trecento art brings a new dimension to the Florentine tradition of

18 Verino, De illustratione, I, p. 130: ‘Nec Zeuxi inferior pictura Sander habetur.’ 19 Ibid., p. 132: ‘Nec tibi Lysippe ist Thuscus Verrochio impar’; ‘Tu quoque Appelleos nosti Perusine colores/Fingere, et in tabulis vivos ostendere vultus.’ 20 Lorenzo Ghiberti, I commentarii, ed. L. Bartoli, Florence 1998; see also Schlosser, Le letteratura, pp. 101-6. 21 Antonio Billi, Il libro, ed. F. Benedettucci, Anzio 1991, and L’anonimo magliabechiano, ed. A. Ficarra, Naples 1968. 22 Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence 1584. 23 Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in quà, 7 vols, (Florence 1681-1728), ed. V. Batelli, 5 vols, Florence 1845-1847; see also Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 586. 24 See Ghiberti, I commentarii (II), pp. 83-97. In the first commentary, Ghiberti deals with ancient art (ibid., pp. 45-82); the third and the fourth commentaries are more theoretical, presenting Ghiberti’s views on optics, anatomy and proportions (ibid., pp. 101-35); see also P. Murray, ‘Ghiberti e il suo secondo Commentario’, in Lorenzo Ghiberti nel suo tempo: atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, 2 vols, Florence 1980, I, pp. 283-92. 25 See Bartoli, ‘Introduzione’ to Ghiberti, I commentarii, pp. 5-42, at p. 31

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writing on art. In his notes, Ghiberti is concise, but careful to mention as many works as

possible by each artist. He indicates that many of the works discussed deserve consideration

and praise; and in referring to them or to an artist’s style, he employs phrases such as

‘perfectissima’,26 ‘con grandissima diligentia’,27 ‘molto egregiamente’28 and ‘excellentemente

e doctamente’.29 He even makes one comparison between artists: he says that, in his

opinion, Simone Martini was surpassed by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.30 In his notes, Ghiberti

does not suggest that he perceived a stylistic progression over the course of the fourteenth

century; nor can we be certain that his positive assessments of works of art are an

indication of his own artistic preferences or taste.31 Nonetheless, they offer a systematic,

well-documented and rich presentation of Trecento art, which inspired later Florentine

writings.32

Il libro of Antonio Billi, which contains lists of works by artists from Giotto to

Michelangelo, was an important source for the promotion of Florentine artists.33 Based on

26 In discussing Giotto’s works in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Ghiberti mentions a crucifix and a painting which he describes as ‘most perfect’; see Ghiberti, I commentarii (II), p. 84: ‘ne’ frati Predicatori è uno crocifixo et una tavola perfectissima di sua mano’. The crucifix is by Giotto, but the painting is Duccio’s Rucellai Madonna; see J. I. Miller and L. Tayor-Mitchell, ‘The Ognissanti Madonna and the Humiliati Order in Florence’, in The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, ed. A. Derbes and M. Sandona, Cambridge 2004, pp. 157-75, at p. 173. 27 This is a reference to Andrea Orcagna’s tabernacle in Orsanmichele in Florence; ibid., p. 87: ‘Fece il tabernacolo di marmo d’Orto San Michele, è cosa excellentissima e singulare cosa, fatto con grandissima diligentia.’ 28 Ghiberti uses this term in connection with: Giotto’s works; ibid., p. 84: ‘Molto egregiamente dipinse la sala del re Uberto de’ huomini famosi, in Napoli... Nella Badia di Firenze, sopra all’entrare della porta in un arco, una meza Nostra Donna con due figure dallato molto egregiamente’; Stefano’s painting of St Thomas Aquinas; see ibid., p. 85: ‘È ne’ frati Predicatori, allato alla porta va nel cimiterio, uno sancto Tommaso d’Aquino fatto molto egregiamente’; and Pietro Cavallini’s mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome; see ibid., p 87: ‘fece istorie sono in santa Maria in Trestevere di musayco molto egregiamente.’ 29 See his account of Duccio’s Maestà; ibid., p. 90: ‘Questa tavola fu fatta molto excellentemente e doctamente.’ 30 Ghiberti, I commentarii (II), p. 89: ‘Maestro Simone fu nobilissimo pictore e molto famoso. Tengono e’ pictori sanesi fosse el migliore, a me parve molto migliore Ambruogio Lorenzetti et altrimento dotto che nessuno degli altri.’ 31 Ghiberti’s artistic terminology is based on Alberti’s: e. g. lineamenti (Alberti, De statua, ed. O. Morisani, Catania 1961, p. 28), misura (Alberti, Della pittura, p. 253), arte (ibid., p. 169), and disegno (ibid., pp. 173-4); see R. Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, 2 vols, Princeton 1970, I, pp. 306-14 (‘Ghiberti the Writer’), at p. 310. For an extended discussion of lineamenti, see B. Mitrović, Serene Greed of the Eye. Leon Battista Alberti and the Philosophical Foundations of Renaissance Architectural Theory, Berlin 2005, pp. 29-47 (‘Lineamenta: a Survey of the Debate’) and 49-61 (‘Lineamenta, Shapes and Forms’). 32 Among these are the Anonimo Magliabechiano, Giovanni Battista Gelli’s Vite d’artisti, ed. G. Mancini, Archivio storico italiano, XVII, 1996, pp. 32-62, and Vasari’s Lives; see Bartoli, ‘Introduzione’ to Ghiberti, I commentarii, pp. 11-12; see also M. Spagnolo, ‘Ragionare e cicalare d’arte a Firenze nel Cinquecento: tracce di un dibattito fra artisti e letterati’, in Officine del nuovo: sodalizi fra letterati, artisti ed editori nella cultura italiana fra Riforma e Controriforma. Atti del simposio internazionale, Utrecht 8-10 Novembre 2007, ed. H. Handrix and P. Procaccioli, Utrecht 2007, pp. 1-27, at p. 3. 33 The work is datable to between 1516 and 1530; see Billi, Il libro (‘Introduzione’), pp. 9-22, at p. 15.

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the short accounts of Villani and Landino for the earliest biographies,34 those in Billi’s Libro

have the character of brief notes, mentioning the essential works of each artist, but with

scant judgements on their artistic quality. Nevertheless, the book was the foundation for

the more detailed biographies of artists by later writers such as Vasari. The Anonimo

Magliabechiano was structured similarly to Il libro and includes the whole of Billi’s text,

prefacing, however, the early Renaissance biographies with information about ancient

artists from Pliny the Elder, which were taken over from Ghiberti’s first commentary.35

In what follows, I shall examine Florentine writings on art, including guidebooks

and biographies of artists, written from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, showing

how this tradition became richer with each new text and how views on Florentine art

gradually crystallized over the centuries. This study will also allow me to compare the

evolution of Florentine and Venetian attitudes towards the art of the past and to see

whether interest in early Florentine painting was driven by taste or, instead, by a desire to

perpetuate and consolidate the historiographical tradition of Florence.

34 Billi, Il libro (‘Introduzione’), pp. 9-22, at p. 12. 35 For more information, see Ficarra, ‘Introduzione’, in L’anonimo magliabechiano, pp. XI-XVI. According to Ficarra, p. XXV, the biographies of Florentine artists were influenced by earlier texts including Landino’s Comento, Il libro di Antonio Billi and Ghiberti’s I Commentarii.

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CHAPTER 6

Florentine Guidebooks

Francesco Albertini’s Memoriale

Francesco Albertini’s Memoriale di molte statue e pitture della città di Firenze, published in 1510,

was the earliest guidebook to Florentine art.1 Despite its short length – only fourteen pages

– the Memoriale gathered together for the first time information about Florentine works of

art which had previously been recorded in individual texts and which, in some cases, had

never been mentioned before.2 As Albertini states, his work was composed during a visit to

Florence,3 in consultation with his friend, the sculptor Baccio da Montelupo (1469-1523?),

at whose request it was written. Following Baccio’s advice, Albertini did not go into great

detail when writing his entries:

My dear Bartolomeo, I know there are some things I have written that great painters will find

superfluous, but you told me I should fill the page[s] with all that I had to say without going into too

much detail.4

The Memoriale is divided into four parts, corresponding to the four quarters of Florence

(San Giovanni, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce and Santo Spirito) and their surroundings.

Each section consists of a presentation of the quarter and its most important church,

followed by shorter accounts of the other churches and the works of art on display there.

While these accounts contained technical information such as the height of churches and of

bell towers, the works of art were merely listed, with no personal comments by Albertini,5

1 For an overview, see Francesco Albertini, Memorial of Many Statues and Paintings in the Illustrious City of Florence, annotat. W. H. de Boer and ed. M. W. Kwakkelstein, Florence 2010, pp. 11-27. 2 Albertini, Memorial, p. 11. 3 Albertini’s visit to Florence was brief. He wrote the prefatory letter to Baccio da Montelupo on 30 August 1510, after he had already left Florence and returned to Rome, where he was working on other books; ibid., pp. 17-21. 4 Francesco Albertini, Memoriale (1510), ed. O. Campa, Florence 1932, p. [11]: ‘Bartholomeo mio, so ci sono alcune cose che alli gran pittori parrano superflue haverle scripte: ma tu dicesti, che io empiessi el foglio, et non guardassi così sottile’; translation in Albertini, Memorial, p. 100. 5 See, e.g., his account of the decoration of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Albertini, Memoriale, p. [5]: ‘Lascio stare il Crucifixo del choro, et la testa marmorea di Iocto per mano di Bene. Maiani: et il cavallo del verde terra per mano di Pau. Uccel. Et il bianco di Andreino: et le croci et candelieri di argento et belli vasi, per mano di

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though presumably his decisions as to what he included and excluded reflected his

judgements.

Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza (1591)

Artistic judgements and attempts to promote local art and artists became increasingly

apparent towards the end of the Cinquecento as more artistic literature was being

published.6 Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza of 1591 was the first

guidebook to give a complete, accurate and critical perspective on Florentine monuments

and works of art, whether displayed publicly or privately.7 Bocchi’s rich, graceful and

elegant descriptions reflect his preferences for particular art works and artistic styles. His

other publications included orations, letters, treatises and discourses, as well as a number of

works concerning the arts.8

Francesco Bocchi (1548-1613) was born in Florence of a prestigious family and

received a well-grounded education in Rome, where he studied literature. After completing

excellentissimi artisti’, and translation in Albertini, Memorial, p. 95: ‘I must also mention the crucifix in the choir, the marble head of Giotto by Benedetto da Maiano, the horse in terra verde by Paolo Uccello, and the white one by Andrea del Castagno, the crosses and the candlesticks of silver and the beautiful vases made by excellent artists.’ 6 For a list of Florentine literature on art, see Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 585-9. 7 Bocchi’s descriptions of works of art held in private collections are as detailed and complete as those referring to public commissions. 8 On Bocchi’s biography and writings, see C. de Michelis, ‘Francesco Bocchi’, in DBI, XI, pp. 72-5; see also Frangenberg, ‘Introduction’ to Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 3-22, at pp. 11-14. Bocchi’s other works on art include an oration in honour of Michelangelo (1564), an essay on Andrea del Sarto (1567) and a treatise on Donatello’s sculpture St George (1571); see ibid., pp. 12-13. Bocchi’s earlier writings have been analysed by Robert Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne, Cambridge 1997, pp. 187-230 (‘Francesco Bocchi’), at pp. 189-2, who placed them in the context of classical treatises such as Aristotle’s Poetics and sixteenth- century works on art by authors such as Lodovico Dolce, Benedetto Varchi and Vasari. In his discourse on Andrea del Sarto, for instance, Bocchi acknowledged that he derived the five elements of painting (disegno, carattere, rilievo, colorito, dolcezza e facilità) from five of Aristotle’s six parts of tragedy (logos, ethos, dianoia, lexis, melapoeia, canto). Bocchi’s treatise in praise of Donatello’s San Giorgio also includes an extended discussion of the elements of painting. It is divided into three sections dedicated to three artistic concepts: character (costume), vivacity (vivacità) and beauty (bellezza). In Bocchi’s opinion, bellezza is: ‘a certain unity and measured correspondence, in regard to which, as to their end, all parts are devised and arranged with respect to the others, making themselves a pleasing sight and, ordered by it, act not without much honor, with which it is always in company’; see Williams, Art, Theory and Culture, p. 208, and Bocchi, ‘Eccellenza del San Giorgio di Donatello’, in P. Barocchi, ed. Trattati d’arte del ’500, 3 vols, Bari 1962, III, pp. 127-94, at p. 169: ‘Questa bellezza pare che sia una certa unità misurata convenevolezza, a cui, come a suo fine, ogni sua parte, ciascuna per rispetto dell’altra ottimamente divisata, fa di sè vista graziosa e, per quello ordinata, adopera non senza molto onore, che a lei è sempre in compagnia.’ Bocchi’s early writings helped to shape and define his artistic outlook, which influenced his later work, Le bellezze.

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his studies, he returned to Florence, where he guided the education of young men from

noble families and became the literary protégé of the art collector and patron Lorenzo

Salviati.9 As a member of this circle of literati and art lovers, he had access to private

collections, which he drew on when composing his guidebook to Florence. During his long

stay in Rome (1572-1582), Bocchi had become familiar with the local artistic literature,10 as

well the most important historiographical writings from northern Italy such as Sansovino’s

Tutte le cose notabili and Venezia città nobilissima. These works might have helped him to

formulate his own views and prompted him to support the art of his own city.11 As Bocchi

stated in the dedication of Le bellezze to Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Florence,

the purpose of his work was to praise the ‘exterior beauty’ of the city of Florence,12 its

beautiful palaces and marvellous paintings.

In analysing the content of Bocchi’s guidebook, I shall attempt to determine how it

fits into the corpus of Florentine writings on art and whether it puts forward innovative

judgements on earlier paintings, which opened a pathway for later writers. I shall try to

establish whether Bocchi echoed Vasari’s views, which are discussed below,13 or instead

came to his own conclusions about early Florentine painting. I shall also investigate

whether there was any difference between his judgements on the art of the past and that of

his own day.

Bocchi’s guidebook is divided into nine parts, corresponding to the nine gates of

Florence through which the visitors entered the city. It is then subdivided into five

itineraries, following the course of the monuments along the streets of Florence.14 Le

bellezze has two features which distinguish it from many other later guidebooks. In the first

place, Bocchi’s descriptions are so detailed and vivid that they allow readers to visualize

images which are not before their eyes. His style is controlled: he masters the artistic

vocabulary with precision, using literary techniques to enhance the visual effect of his

descriptions and to arouse the reader’s emotions. Secondly, Le bellezze, although aimed

primarily at art lovers and connoisseurs, also addressed artists, indicating the aspects of art

9 Shearman, ‘Introduction’ to Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 1-3, at p. 1. 10 For a list of Roman writings on art before 1591, see Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 598-604. 11 See Frangenberg, ‘Introduction’ to Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 3-22, at p. 14 and n. 19. 12 Bocchi, ‘Alla Serenissima Cristina di Loreno, Gran Duchessa di Toscana’, in his Le bellezze, sigs 2r-3v, at sig. 3r: ‘le bellezze esteriori’. 13 See Chapter 7, pp. 150-157 below. 14 For a summary of all five itineraries, see Frangenberg, ‘Introduction’ to Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 3-22, at pp. 17-18.

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works of the past to which they should pay particular attention and noting those which

were admired by painters themselves.15

Bocchi begins his tour of Florence by describing a group of churches and private

buildings which could be seen as one entered through the gate of San Gallo. A number of

these had works of art dating from the late Trecento to the early Cinquecento. Starting with

the convent of San Marco, Bocchi selects two artists whom he considers to be worthy of

praise. The first is Fra Bartolommeo, three of whose paintings he describes as ‘singularly

beautiful’.16 Bocchi often admires lifelike representations and says that they were

appreciated by experts:17 for instance, he states that ‘two little angels playing musical

instruments’ painted by Bartolommeo are ‘so natural that they appear to be alive’ and are

considered ‘more wonderful than any other painting’.18

The second artist singled out by Bocchi is Fra Angelico (1395-1455). He

emphasizes the influence of the artist’s spiritual life on his works,19 claiming that they

inspired ‘sanctity and devotion’ in viewers.20 This capacity to stir emotions, inspire

meditation and induce a sense of piety and devotion in viewers was one of the features

which Venetian writers on art especially valued in early works.21

Bocchi also notes the religious dimension of works of art by other early Florentine

artists including Donatello’s sculpture of St Mark the Evangelist decorating the south

façade of the church of Orsanmichele.22 While noting the holy air surrounding the figure of

15 Bocchi often reinforces his praise for a painting by stating that it was admired by practitioners; see, e.g., Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 100: ‘da gli artefici tenuto in pregio e amirato’. 16 Ibid., p. 7: ‘di singular bellezza’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 28. 17 In many of Bocchi’s descriptions of early paintings, this is the main element which he admires, employing a range of expressions: e.g, Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 7: ‘paiono vivi’ (referring to a painting by Bartolommeo in San Marco); ibid., pp. 62-3: ‘vivezza’, ‘paiono veri’, ‘simile al naturale’ (referring to Pietro Perugino’s Prayer in the Garden, now in the Uffizi). For a discussion of ‘lifelikeness’ as a criterion of artistic quality in the Renaissance, see T. Puttfarken, The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting 1400-1800, New Haven and London 2000, pp. 8-9. 18

Bocchi, Le bellezze, p. 7: ‘due angeletti, che suonano stromenti musicali, tanto naturali, che paiono vivi, tenuti sopra tutte le pitture maravigliosi’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 28. The painting identified as The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine is now in the Galleria Palatina of the Pitti Pallace in Florence; see Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 28, n. 23, and S. Padovani, ed., L’età di Savonarola: Fra Bartolomeo e la scuola di San Marco, Venice 1996, pp. 94-8. 19 See J. L. de Jong, ‘Cultivating Piety. Religious Art and Artists After the Council of Trent’ in Meditatio: Refashioning the Self. Theory and Practice in Late Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual Culture, ed. K. Enenkel and W. Melion, London 2011, pp. 367-89. 20 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 8: ‘spirano tutte le sue pitture santità e divozione’. 21See, e.g., Chapter 2, pp. 50-51 above. 22 See Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 30: ‘Spira il volto divozione e santità’; see also Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 45 and n. 109.

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St Mark, Bocchi also remarks, drawing on Giovanni Battista Gelli, Benedetto Varchi and

Vasari, that the statue was admired by Michelangelo for being ‘executed with so much

knowledge and such profound judgement that the more one contemplates it, the more one

discerns its astounding excellence’.23 Bocchi devoted considerable attention to other works

by Donatello, including a marble statue of St John in the house of Francesco Martelli:

Here is a youthful St John in marble by Donatello, a sculptor outstanding among all others;

his importance is held to rival that of the artists of antiquity. This statue is famous for its

workmanship and for the wonderful liveliness one discerns in it.24

Bocchi’s account is significant for two reasons: first, he acknowledges Donatello’s

importance; and, second, he specifies two of his aesthetic criteria: ‘workmanship’ and

‘liveliness’. It is also worth noting that Donatello is not compared to other Florentine

sculptors of his day or to later ones such as Desiderio da Settignano, Benvenuto Cellini or

Baccio Bandinelli, whose works might well have been known to readers or travellers, but

instead to the sculptors of antiquity. In describing another of Donatello’s statues, Lo

Zuccone, he goes even further, claiming that it is more highly rated than ancient works:

This statue is judged as beautiful not only in Florence, where this most precious work is

common property and everybody simply enjoys looking at it quietly, but it is famous

23 See Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591): p. 30: ‘fatto con tanto sapere, e con giudizio così profondo, che quanto più si considera, più in quello si conosce eccellenza, e maraviglia’, and Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 48, n. 110. See also Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 29: ‘fermatosi un giorno Michelagnolo Buonarroti a contemplar questa statua, che un suo amico a punto sopraggiunse, e il domandò come gli pareva belle: a cui rispose il Buonarroto: se tale fu il vivo, come stimare si dee, che fosse fermamente, gli si può credere tutto quello, che egli scrisse: peroche io non vidi mai alcuno, che più di questo havesse aria di huomo da bene’. Cf. Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 912: ‘un cittadino che lo trovò a Orto San Michele in Fiorenza, che s’era fermato a riguardare la statua del San Marco di Donato, e lo domandò quel che di figura li paresse, Michele Agnolo rispose che non vide mai figura che avesse più aria di uomo da bene di quela’; Gelli, Vite d’artisti, p. 59: ‘Michelangelo usava dire che non aveva maj visto chi avessi più aria d’uomo da vene che quella figura’; and Benedetto Varchi, Orazione funerale...nell’essequie di Michelangelo, Florence 1564, pp. 38-9: ‘Passando egli una volta da Horto San Michele, e guardando fisaente, e come stupito il San Marco di Donatello, lo sopraggiunse un suo amico, e gli disse: Michelagnolo questa Figura chente è? E tale (rispose incontamente Michelagnolo) che se l’essemplo fu cosi fatto, quale è l’esemplato (com’io non dubito che egli fu) gli si puo credere sicuramente tutto quello, che egli scrisse.’ 24 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 10-11: ‘dove è un San Giovanni di Marmo di giovenile età di mano di Donatello scultore oltra tutti singulare, e stimato tale, che gareggi col valore de gli antichi artefici. È famosa questa statua per l’artifizio, e per la vivezza che si scorge in essa maravigliosa’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 32-3.

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everywhere; it is not inferior to the rarest beauties of the ancients, but is their equal, and as

it happens, the most important experts think that it surpasses them greatly.25

Bocchi was not the first to invoke this comparison. In the ‘proemio’ to his Dante

commentary, Landino wrote that Donatello occupied a well-deserved place among the

excellent artists of antiquity on account of his marvellous compositions and variety.26 His

judgement was repeated by the Anonimo Magliabechiano and by Antonio Billi, who also

praised the vivacity of Donatello’s figures.27

While it is evident that Bocchi drew on this earlier tradition of writing about

Donatello, his account is more elaborate, containing both descriptive and interpretative

elements. He touches on aspects such as the representation of figures, their features, the

way they were perceived by experts and the feelings experienced by viewers standing before

them. He writes, for example, of Donatello’s statue of Judith and Holofernes, which in his

day stood in the Loggia dei Lanzi:28

The Judith by Donatello, produced by the most accomplished of artists, was the first to be

placed here. The artists who followed, contemplating the extreme beauty of this work,

concentrated their efforts in such a way that their own workmanship was refined, and their

understanding and judgement were improved, bringing them much praise. Each one is

more noteworthy than the other in some respect, and is therefore greatly acclaimed by

everybody.29

25 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 22: ‘questa non solo è giudicata bella in Firenze, dove nel possesso di così prezioso lavoro gode ciascuno tacitamente la vista senza più: ma è famosa per tutto, e non cede alle più rare bellezze de gli antichi; ma con quelle va di pari, e per avventura, come è, opinione de’ più intendenti, a gran ravione le avanza’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 40. While the anecdote preceding the description of the painting, which consists of a fictitious exclamation Donatello addressed to the statue, is taken directly from Vasari: ‘Talk, go on, talk, may you shit blood’, the assessment of Donatello’s work itself is Bocchi’s; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), II, p. 405: ‘Favella, favella, che ti venga il cacasangue!’ 26 Landino, Comento, I, p. 242: ‘Donato sculptore da esssere connumerato fra gl’antichi, mirabile in compositione et varietà.’ 27 L’Anonimo Magliabechiano, p. 81: ‘degno fra li antichi eccellenti e rari uomini d’essere connumerato, mirabile fu in composizione e pronto in varietà’; Billi, Il libro, p. 46: ‘scultore da esser numerato tra li antichi, mirabile certo in composizione e in varietà, pronto e con grande vivacità nello ordine e nel situare le figure’. 28 The statue is now in the Palazzo Vecchio; see Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 49, n. 116. 29 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 31: ‘Et per che la Giudit di Donatello si come per lo tempo prima che le altre venne in luce, procedente da mano di artefice più compiuto: così ne gli artefici, che seguirono mirando la somma bellezza di quella mise così gran cura che assotigliata l’industria si avanzarono poscia nel senno, nel giudizio con molta lode, onde è ciascuno in alcuna parte più dell’altro notabile, e ha per questo grande honore appresso tutti acquistato’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 49.

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Rather than comparing Donatello to the ancients, Bocchi here acknowledges the influence

and impact of his art on future generations.30 For Bocchi, Donatello appears to connect the

reception and the continuity of antiquity in the early Renaissance to the transmission of

new and refined artistic expressions in the works of the later artists.

The fact that Bocchi, at the end of the sixteenth century, was comparing works by

Donatello to those by the masters of antiquity showed that his statues continuted to be

regarded as examples of artistic excellence which were relevant to contemporary artists.

That writers a century earlier thought in those terms is not surprising; that Bocchi still did

so is more interesting.

In his itinerary for travellers entering Florence through the Porta Romana, Bocchi

advises visitors to the Jesuit church of San Giusto to take a close look at Pietro Perugino’s

Prayer in the Garden (fig. 60):

The Saviour is seen praying with exceeding emotion. Nearby the apostles are sleeping; they

are so overwhelmed by fatigue and are motionless, and as they rest they display poses so

apt that they appear alive.31

Bocchi’s evocative description captures the atmosphere of Perugino’s painting and is able

to convey its artistic effect to those not standing in front of it. He also uses suggestive

literary descriptions to draw attention to another painting by Perugino in the same church.

Discussing the Pietà (fig. 61), he remarks on the artist’s ability to create a contrast between

‘the lifeless body of Christ’ and his weeping mother:

On another panel the same artist painted the dead Christ on the lap of his mother, which is

much admired by the artists. Here he represented the appearance of a lifeless body in an

extraordinarily natural manner.32

30 Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 49, n. 117. 31 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 62-3: ‘il Salvatore con eccessivo affetto di fare orazione, e appresso gli Apostoli, che dormono, come stanchi di soverchio e risoluti in languidezza, si riposano con attitudini così bene accommodate che paiono veri’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 77. 32 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 62-3: ‘un Cristo morto in grembo alla madre, ammirato molto da glio huomini dell’arte;nel quale imitò cosi bene l’effetto del corpo, quando l’anima da quello è spirata’; and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 77. This painting is now in the Uffizi.

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Vasari, too, draws attention, in writing about the Prayer in the Garden, to Perugino’s

representation of the sleeping apostles, unaware of Christ’s suffering.33 As for the Pietà,

Vasari remarks only that the figures are as good as others depicted by Perugino.34 If we

compare the accounts by the two writers, we are struck by Bocchi’s attention to detail in

contrast to Vasari’s brevity. Bocchi’s descriptions function almost as a substitute for the

painting and help readers to appreciate specific elements when analysing a painting.35

Discussing Masaccio’s frescoes in Santa Maria delle Carmine, for instance, Bocchi praises

the way in which the artist depicted the figure of St Peter with ‘extreme diligence and

infinite beauty’ (fig. 62).36 Here is his description of a particular scene:

One sees him engaged in resuscitating the dead, and healing the afflicted, natural in his

gestures and poses. Artists cannot praise enough the liveliness of the Saint in the scene

where he takes the coin out of the stomach of a fish to pay the tribute money, as Christ had

ordered. The tax collector is equally vivid; he fixes a glance on the money he holds in his

hand, and his features express an exceedingly intense lust for this gold.37

Although his account of these frescoes is drawn largely from Vasari,38 Bocchi’s stylistic

comments add a personal touch. Furthermore, he notes that ‘men of great judgement’

(huomini di gran giudizio) consider him to be ‘a miracle in his art’,39 and states that Massacio’s

noble style inspired, among many other painters, Michelangelo, Raphael and Andrea del

33 Vasari, Le vite (1568), II, p. 573: ‘gli Apostoli che dormono; ne’ quali mostrò Pietro quanto vaglia il sonno contra gli affanni e dispiaceri’. 34 Ibid.: ‘e nell’altra fece una Pietà, cioè Cristo in grembo, alla Nostra Donna con quattro figure intorno non men buone che l’altre della maniera sua’. 35 On his style of writing and his use of artistic terms, see Frangenberg, ‘Introduction’, to Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 3-22, at 19-22. 36 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 80: ‘con sommo studio sono stati espressi da questo mirabile artefice molti fatti miracolosi di S. Pietro con infinita bellezza’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 91. 37 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 80-1: ‘Si vede pronto quando risuscito i morti, risana gli attrati con vive movenze, e naturali attitudini. Non si saziano gli artefici in lodar la vivezza, che mostra questo santo, quando nel ventre del pesce comeda Christo gli è imposto, cava la moneta, onde dee pagare il tributo. E’ pronto altresi chi risquote: il quale ne’ danari, che tiene in mano, affissata la vista, mostra in suo sembiante un disiderio dell’oro oltra modo affettuoso’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 91. 38 Cf. Vasari, Le vite (1568), II, p. 297-8: ‘il San Piero massimamente, il quale affaticarsi a cavare i danari del ventre del pesce ha la testa focosa per lo stare chinato; e molto più quand’ei paga il tributo, dove si vede l’affetto del contare e la sete di colui che riscuote, che si guarda i danari in mano con grandissimo piacere.’ 39 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 81: ‘gli huomini di gran giudizio afferman…che è stato nell’arte sua un miracolo…’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 91.

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Sarto.40 While Vasari had provided a list of all the painters who visited the Brancacci chapel

from Fra Angelico to Antonio Toto del Nunziata (1498-1554),41 Bocchi names only these

three artists. This selection was not, however, arbitrary, since he refers to these artists

constantly throughout his guidebook as excellent painters who displayed a perfect style. He

also gives lengthy discussions of each of the three painters and points out the main

elements which made their styles unique and distinguishable. He praises Raphael especially

for his paintings, Michelangelo for his marvellous design and Andrea del Sarto for

‘obtaining the exact likeness of nature’.42 Bocchi does not attempt to establish which of the

three painters was superior, but simply sets out the particular area in which each excelled,

indicating which elements the reader should appreciate and pay attention to:

This is not to say that Andrea is greater than Raphael in the lovely charm of his colour or

that his design is more profound than Michelangelo, but rather that, in the matter of

forceful effects of relief, in the lifelikeness and naturalness expressed so marvellously in his

figures, he is indisputably incomparable.43

Once again, Bocchi invokes a set of artistic qualities which have become part of a

standardized artistic vocabulary meant to shape the views of readers and train them to

recognize excellent works of art.

In addition to making general comments on the styles of Michelangelo, Raphael and

Andrea del Sarto, Bocchi also analyses specific paintings by each of them in various

Florentine collections and churches. In describing the collection of Matteo and Giovanni

40 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 81: ‘Da costui hanno apparato per non dir di altri, che sono di numero grandissimo, il divin Buonarotto, l’eccellentissimo Andrea del Sarto, Raffael da Urbino, tanto sovrano e tanto raro, quella maniera, che sopra tutte mirabile più di tutte ancora con honore è ricordata’, and Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 91: ‘the very many others, the Divine Michelangelo, the most excellent Andrea del Sarto and the supreme and rare Raphael of Urbino have all learnt from him that manner [of painting] which more than any other is admirable and appreciated today.’ 41 See Vasari, Le vite (1568), II, p. 299: ‘Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra Filippo, Filippino che la finì, Alesso Baldovinetti, Andrea del Castagno, Andrea del Verrocchio, Domenico del Grillandaio, Sandro di Botticello, Lionardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, fra’ Bartolomeo di San Marco, Mariotto Albertinelli, ed il divinissimo Michelangelo Buonarroti. Raffaello ancora da Urbino di quivi trasse il principio della bella maniera sua, il Granaccio, Lorenzo di Credi, Ridolfi del Grillandaio, Andrea del Sarto, il Rosso, il Franciabiagio, Baccio Bandinelli, Alonso Spagnolo, Iacopo da Pontormo, Pierino del Vaga e Toto del Nunziata.’ 42See Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 140: ‘Però che è mirabile Raffaello nel dipignere, sublime il Buonarroto nel disegno, miracoloso Andrea nel contrafar la natura’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 136. 43 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 140: ‘Non è magiore Andrea nel vago colorito, e allegro di Raffaello, ne più profondo del Buonarroto nel disegno: ma è senza dubbio incomparabile nel gran rilievo, nella vivezza, e nella natura, che da lui nelle sue figure si conosce espressa mirabilmente’, translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 136.

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Battista Botti, he writes that the Virgin and Child by Andrea del Sarto is ‘executed with

supreme style’,44 ‘with that sweetness of colouring and that relief which make this unique

artist superior to all’. 45 While this statement appears to contradict Bocchi’s earlier comment

in which he avoided rankings, it is, I believe, formulated with the same intention – to point

out particularities of style in the work of an artist which make him distinguishable from the

others and, at the same time, to help the reader to identify and appreciate these features.

Continuing to discuss paintings in the same collection, Bocchi draws attention to ‘a portrait

of a beautiful and elegant young woman’ by Raphael, known as La Donna velata, ‘highly

esteemed by artists’ (fig. 63).46 He then praises Raphael as an ‘admirable painter’ and claims

that the painting in the Botti collection is ‘noble and famous everywhere’.47 In his

description of the painting, Vasari had stated that the owner regarded it as a precious relic

on account of his love for Raphael;48 he thus placed the painting in a private context, as an

object which the owner had the exclusive privilege of admiring and treasuring. Bocchi, by

contrast, takes it out of this private context, stressing that the painting is widely known and

appreciated.

In addition to his evident appreciation of late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento

artists, justified on the basis of detailed stylistic analyses of their works, Bocchi also

discusses the contribution made by these painters to the development of Florentine art. In

writing about the church of Santa Trinita, he examines a panel representing The Virgin and

Child by Cimabue (fig. 64)49 which he says ‘is treated with reverence, since it is an ancient

work, and since it was created by the painter who originated the beautiful manner [of

painting] which flourishes today’.50 Here, Bocchi expresses a view shared by some Venetian

44 Shearman suggested that this painting could be the one in Hampton Court; see Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 93, n. 283, and J. Shearman, The Early Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, Cambridge and New York 1983, pp. 9-11. 45 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 83: ‘Ci è un quadro di N. Donna col figliuolo in collo di mano di Andrea del Sarto, fatto con somma industria…con quella dolcezza di colorito, e con quel rilievo, per cui è questo singulare artefice à gli altri superiore’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 93 and n. 283. 46 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 83-4: ‘Ci è ancora un ritratto di una giovane di bel sembiante, e leggiadro dipinto da Raffael da Urbino: il quale è tenuto dagli artefici in grande stima’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 93-4, and n. 284. 47

Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 83: ‘il quale è tenuto dagli artefici in grande stima: e si come fu questo pittore ammirabile, così è l’opera nobile, e famosa appresso tutti’, and translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 94. 48 Vasari, Le vite (1568), IV, p. 355: ‘tenuta da lui come reliquia per l’amore che egli porta all’arte e particularmente a Raffaello’. 49 This painting is now in the Uffizi; see Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 100, n. 308. 50 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 92: ‘ma è tenuta in riverenza (come cosa antica, e che dal primo pittore procede, onde è nata la bella maniere, che oggi è in fiore)’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 100.

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authors of guidebooks and biographies, who also appreciated the continuity between early

and later painters.51 Bocchi acknowledges Cimabue’s importance for the history of

Florentine painting, on the grounds that he laid down the principles on which later artists

developed and perfected their style. Describing a panel by Cimabue in Santa Croce,52 he

observes that although it has ‘little value when compared to modern pictures, it still

deserves remembrance and consideration as a reminder of what that artist who initiated the

wonderful manner of painting in use today’.53 Without drawing on earlier texts, Bocchi

again pays tribute to the impact which Cimabue’s stylistic innovations had on Florentine

painting.54 This comment also illustrates his belief that painters of his own day could not

have reached stylistic maturity had it not been for the efforts of their predecessors, even

though works by artists such as Cimabue were less valued than modern ones, because it

paved the way for the development and progress of painting, while not attaining the perfect

colouring and naturalist effects achieved by painters such as Andrea del Sarto and Raphael.

Later guidebook writers such as Gaetano Cambiagi and Raffaello del Bruno also adopted

Bocchi’s view, encouraging readers to appreciate the works of Cimabue and Giotto on

account of their antiquity.55 In this connection, there is a similarity between the views of the

Florentine and Venetian guidebooks writers, in that they promote both tendencies:

respecting paintings for their antiquity and valuing them as works of art.

Continuing his guided tour of Florence, Bocchi proposes an itinerary which starts at

the Porta del Prato d’Ognissanti for travellers arriving from Genoa, Lucca, Prato and

51 See, e.g., Chapter 3, p. 62 above, on Boschini. 52 Bocchi refers here to Cimabue’s Crucifix, which is now in the Museo di Santa Croce; see Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 146, n. 456. 53 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 153: ‘Tavola di mano di Cimabue, la quale, come che comparata con le pitture moderne sia hoggi di poco pregio, tuttavia per memoria di questo artefice onde è nato il colorito maraviglioso, che hoggi è in uso, e degno di memoria e di considerazione’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 146. 54 Bocchi distances himself from Vasari and expresses his own view on Cimabue’s painting; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), I, p. 249: ‘et in Santa Croce una tavola dentrovi una Nostra Donna, la quale fu et è ancora appoggiata in un pilastro a man destra intorno al coro.’ 55 Gaetano Cambiagi, L’antiquario fiorentino: osia Guida per osservar con metodo le cose notabili della città di Firenze, Florence 1781, pp. 92-3: ‘se ne trovano in questa Chiesa e nel Convento alcune di Cimabue, e di Giotto, le quali quantunque siano dalle moderne pitture superate in bellezza, non è però, che non meritino di essere tenute in grande stima, per la venerazione che si dee a quei due primi Maestri e Restauratori della Pittura’, and Raffaello del Bruno, Il Ristretto delle cose più notabili della città di Firenze, 6th ed., Florence 1757, p. 62: ‘se ne trovano in questa chiesa alcune di Cimabue, e di Giotto, le quali, quantunque siano dalle moderne pitture superate in bellezza, non è pero, che non meritino di esser tenute in grande stima, per la venerazione, che si dee a quei due primi Maestri, e Restauratori della Pittura.’

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Pistoia.56 On entering the church of Ognissanti, the first painting which invites us to a more

careful inspection is St Augustine by Botticelli (fig. 65). Bocchi’s description shows what a

fine observer he is: ‘The face of this Saint reveals his noble thoughts; it turns upwards, and

his mind impresses dignity on his appearance. He seems to be free from earthly concerns,

and to concentrate on divine matters alone.’57 Unlike his other descriptions, where he

usually concentrates on stylistic analysis, Bocchi here provides a sensitive interpretation of

the picture’s content and meaning, offering the reader or traveller an alternative way to look

at the painting. His aim seems to be to prompt viewers to adopt a similar attitude to that of

St Augustine, directing their thoughts towards ‘divine matters’. Bocchi then draws an

inspired parallel with a painting of St Jerome by Domenico Ghirlandaio (fig. 66), placed

opposite Botticelli’s St Augustine.58 His interpretation follows the same lines: ‘In the grave

appearance [of St Jerome] one perceives dignity, and since his pose is very lively, and he

concentrates on divine thoughts, he doubtlessly inspires reverence in the viewer.’59 Between

the two figures of the Church Fathers – one absorbed in meditation, the other slightly

distracted – stands the viewer who completes the image of a triptych of contemplation. Just

as Venetian writers on art placed emphasis on the capacity of early religious paintings to

arouse the feelings of viewers and imbue them with piety and devotion, so, too, this attitude

is found in Florentine artistic literature.

Bocchi’s accounts of paintings in churches alternate with descriptions of streets and

bridges which lead to palazzi and privately owned collections such as that belonging to

Bishop Giuliano Ricasoli. Among ancient marble busts, sculptures and roundels decorated

with reliefs, there were paintings, some of which Bocchi describes with great enthusiasm.

One was a copy after a painting by Raphael of St John the Baptist, who ‘was depicted with

56 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 97: ‘Chi fa il viaggio di Genova, di Lucca, di Prato e di Pistoia arriva à questa Porta.’ 57 Ibid., p. 100: ‘Si mostra nel volto questo santo di Dio pieno di nobili pensieri e levato in alto con la mente esprime nel suo sembiante gravità, e diviso da terreni affari pare, che alle cose divine intenda senza più’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 106. 58 Although Vasari had noted the parallel display of the two paintings, he had not given any interpretation of the two works; Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, p. 258: ‘nella chiesa d’Ognisanti, a concorrenza di Sandro Botticelli, [Domenico Ghirlandaio] dipinse a fresco un San Girolamo’. 59 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 101: ‘Si scorge nel grave sembiante maestà, e perche in viva attitudine molto e molto sta intento ne’divini avvisi, muove senza dubbio in chi contempla riverenza’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 107.

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such alert diligence and such effort that it is unbelievably close to its model’.60 Bocchi

relates with some amusement that when Ricasoli was asked to return the original painting

which he had borrowed from its owner, Giovan Maria Benintendi, he was in such a state of

confusion that he needed expert advice to tell them apart.61 We can perhaps learn

something about contemporary attitudes towards reproductions from Bocchi’s praise for

the painter’s skill in emulating the original and from the fact that he tells us that Ricasoli

displayed both the copy and the original by Raphael in adjacent rooms. When, however,

discussing another painting of the Virgin and Child with Sts Elizabeth and John the Baptist,

also by Raphael, displayed in another room, Bochi commends the artist’s understanding of

composition and his perfect rendering of the figures, which seemed to be alive: ‘one forgets

that it is only a painting, and the beholder is filled with devotion and reverence’.62 So, even

in the ‘profane’ context of a private palazzo, though one owned by a bishop, he stresses the

piety and reverence induced by the painting. Raphael’s representation is so powerful that it

makes viewers oblivious of the space they occupy and forces them to concentrate

exclusively on the different ‘reality’ which they can discover in the composition.

Bocchi next advises the traveller to visit the Strozzi chapel in Santa Maria Novella,

with two paintings by Filippino Lippi: St John Resuscitating Drusiana (fig. 67) and St Philip

Driving the Dragon from the Temple of Hieropolis (fig. 68). He praises both paintings and

attempts to recreate the dynamic and lively atmosphere suggested by Lippi’s images. In the

painting of St John, Bocchi, like Vasari before him, draws attention to the graceful poses of

the figures and the presence of a little boy fleeing a dog – a small detail which produces a

realistic atmosphere. Likewise following Vasari, Bocchi notes the naturalism which

characterised Lippi’s painting of St Philip, displayed on the opposite wall. The hole from

which the dragon had emerged, formed by a broken stone in one of the steps, seemed so

‘real and natural’, we are told, that one of Lippi’s assistants tried to hide something in there;

60 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 104: ‘È fatta questa figura con diligenza cosi svegliata, e con tanto studio, che oltra ogni stima simile al principale, hanno pensato alcuni non senza ragione, che sia il proprio di Raffaello’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 108 and n. 157. 61 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 104: ‘Perche Guivan Maria Benintendi, padrone del quadro, che coresemente al Vescovo de’ Ricasoli l’havea accommodato, quando fu chiamato per prendere il suo, come che con accuratezza ponesse mente, non potè discernere tuttavia qual fosse quel di Raffaello’, translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 108. 62 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 105: ‘posto in oblio, che sia dipinto quello, che si contempla, appresso egli nasce divozione e riverenza’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 109.

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and when he realised his mistake, declared the painting to be ‘noble and admirable’.63 Even

though Bocchi’s descriptions of both paintings are based extensively on Vasari, he makes a

few comments of his own on Lippi’s style, drawing an analogy, for instance, between the

trompe l’oeil in Lippi’s painting of St Philip and the classical anecdote in which the painter

Zeuxis was deceived by his rival Parrhasius’s illusionistic curtain.64

Bocchi goes on to give a detailed account of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s frescoes in

Santa Maria Novella, which were commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni. Each scene is

described, starting from the chapel vault and continuing downwards to the episodes from

the lives of St John the Baptist and of the Virgin. Most of what he writes comes from

Vasari.65 He does, however, add that Ghirlandaio’s frescoes were painted with ‘beautiful

skill and felicitous intelligence’ and with ‘great understanding and clear, lovely and

magnificent order’.66

Bocchi’s guided tour of Florence ends with two itineraries, one departing from

Porta San Niccolò, the other from Porta di San Miniato. The traveller, coming from Arezzo

enters the city through the gate of San Niccolò and comes to the church of the same

name.67 The paintings here are by artists from the second half of the sixteenth century,

including Alessandro del Barbiere (1538/43-1592), Battista Naldini (1537-1591), Francesco

Poppi (1544-1597); but Bocchi applies the same criteria which he uses for judging earlier

63 Cf. Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, p. 472-3: ‘vi dipinse la rottura d’uno scaglione, tanto bene che volendo una sera uno de’ garzoni di Filippo riporre non so che cosa acciò non fosse veduta da uno che picchiava per entrare, corse alla buca così in fretta per appiattarvela dentro, e ne rimase inganatto’, with Bocchi, Le bellezze, pp. 114-15: ‘Perloche essendo picchiato un giorno alla porta del tavolato, che dinanzi al luogo si pone, come è usanza, dove si dipigne mentre che vuole un garzone di Filippo, prima che apra, nascondere alcuna cosa, che tiene in mano, corse in fretta alla buca dipinta, che gli pareva vera e come à Zeusi, pittor famoso avvenne, trovato inganatosi, confesso senza fallo, come questa pittura sopra tutto era nobile e mirabile’; see also Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 118, and n. 379. 64 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 114-15: ‘corse in fretta alla buca dipinta, che gli pareva vere, e come à Zeusi, pittor famoso avenne trovato ingannatosi’. See Pliny the Elder, Natural History, ed. and transl. H. Rackham, 10 vols, London 1938-1963, IX, p. 310 (Book XXXV.36): ‘atque intellecto errore concederet palmam ingenuo pudore, quoniam ipse volucres fefellisset, Parrhasius autem se artificem’, and translation at p. 311: ‘and when he realized his mistake, with a modesty that did him honour he yielded up the prize, saying that whereas he had deceived birds Parrhasius had deceived him, an artist’. 65 Vasari, Le vite (1568), III, pp. 262-8. 66 Bocchi Le bellezze (1591), p. 117: ‘con si bello artifizio e con ingegno così felice’, and 118: ‘con molta intelligenza’, ‘ordine chiaro, vago e magnifico’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 119-20, and see nn. 380, 382, 384 and 385. 67 In this itinerary, the only attraction which Bocchi offers the traveller is the church of San Niccolò; see Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 124-6.

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works, singling out for praise the poses of the figures, the colouring and representations

which appear lifelike.68

Bocchi’s account of the monuments in the district of San Miniato is very long and

detailed. Particularly noteworthy is his description of a fresco of the Lamentation by Pietro

Perugino in San Pier Maggiore, which ‘seems to have been painted very recently’ because of

its masterful rendition, giving the work an air of freshness.69 This comment suggests that

what he admired in Perugino’s painting was its appearance of newness, so that it resembled

those painted in Bocchi’s own day.

He also discusses some Renaissance masters found in the house of Baccio Valori.70

In a room on the first level, Bocchi remarks on a painting of the Madonna and Child by

Botticelli which is now lost. He says that the figures of the Virgin and Christ child are noble

and that the angels’ expression is joyous and graceful. He regards the colouring as the key

element which makes the painting look ‘distinguished and precious’.71 Of the paintings in

Valori’s collection, he has most praise for Andrea del Sarto’s Birth of St John: ‘this work is

admired and held in the highest regard, famous among experts, for, even though small, it

clearly demonstrates Andrea’s greatness’.72 Bocchi goes on to express appreciation for del

Sarto, whom he regarded as a gifted and talented painter.73

Bocchi’s observations are sharp, precise and complex. He gives detailed information

about the paintings, the artists and their styles, and his presentation of the material is

systematic. What is innovative about Le bellezze is the way in which Bocchi combines

description and interpretation.74 Travellers following his five itineraries through Florence

would have been encouraged to think about the paintings, to appreciate their different

68 See n. 17 above. 69 See Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 176-7: ‘tuttavia si mantiene ancora in guisa, che par fatto di poco tempo, anzi mostra del tutto di esser fresco’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 171. 70 Baccio Valori was a Florentine literato and art collector. He was also one of the four interlocutors in Raffaello Borghini’s fictitious dialogue Il Riposo (1584); see M. Bury, ‘Bernardo Vecchietti, Patron of Giambologna’, I Tatti Studies, 1, 1985 (hereafter Bury, ‘Bernardo Vecchietti’), pp. 13-56, at p. 14. 71 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 182: ‘È di aria nobile la Vergine, e il figliuolo altresi; due Angeli in graziosa vista e lieta’, ‘il colorito nel tutto vago rende questa pittura nobile e rara’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 174. 72 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 183: ‘Ammirato adunque e tenuto in sommo pregio è famoso appresso gli huomini intendenti questo lavoro; il quale, quanto valesse Andrea ancora in si picciolo spazio di luogo, mostra apertemente’; translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 174: ‘Thus, this work is admired and held in the highest regard, famous among experts, for even though small, it clearly demonstrates Andrea’s greatness.’ 73 Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), pp. 182-3: ‘Et di vero egli pare, che piovessero le grazie ogni sua più rara virtù nelle mani di questo singolare artefice’, translation in Bocchi, The Beauties, p. 174: ‘Truly it seems that the Graces poured down all their most precious virtues into the hands of this singular artist.’ 74 R. Williams, ‘A Treatise by Francesco Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 52, 1989, pp. 111-39, at p. 111.

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elements such as colouring, drawing and relief and to develop their own preferences.

Bocchi seems to have valued early Renaissance artists mainly for their contribution to the

later development of Florentine painting. Although his descriptions were strongly

influenced by Vasari, Bocchi nevertheless felt free to express his own opinions and to add

interpretative depth to previous accounts. He admired the ability of Renaissance painters to

represent figures in graceful poses and attitudes which inspired devotion and meditation.

Among those he favoured most were Masaccio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi

and Sandro Botticelli, whose naturalistic compositions he especially admired. He also

maintained that the style of Andrea del Sarto, Raphael and Michelangelo was perfect and

that each excelled in a particular area.

It is striking, however, that Bocchi did not make a distinction between the three

artistic periods about which Vasari wrote; nor is it clear from his descriptions how he

thought the stylistic progression from early Trecento artists to Michelangelo and beyond

had taken place. Also, Bocchi concentrated on earlier artists as much as he did on the

contemporary ones and seems to imply that the tradition of Florentine painting largely

ended with Raphael, Sarto and Michelangelo. By contrast, although Venetian writers

generally took the view that the artistic tradition of their city had reached its height with

Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, they nevertheless thought that it continued to develop

afterwards.

Giovanni Cinelli’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza (1677)

Like most guidebooks, Bocchi’s went through a subsequent edition. In 1677, the Florentine

physician Giovanni Cinelli decided to provide a new and amplified version of Le bellezze

della città di Firenze, in which he included information, clearly marked in italics, about works

of art produced after the first edition of 1591.75 In a lengthy preface,76 Cinelli explains that,

finding himself one day in the house of Antonio Magliabechi, he was asked by literati from

outside Florence to give them some notes about the most important monuments in the

75 Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Firenze, ed. Giovanni Cinelli, Florence 1677. 76 Ibid., pp. 1-32 (‘Giovanni Cinelli All’amico, e cortese Lettore’).

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city.77 To his embarrassment, he was unable to provide this information and, therefore,

decided to gather together some material. The most obvious source was Bocchi’s

guidebook. After reading it, however, Cinelli was not entirely satisfied and came to the

conclusion that he should update it.78 In doing so, one of his principal aims was to defend

some painters, both ancient and modern, who had been misjudged in previous writings.

Cinelli listed all the errors which these painters had been accused of by non-specialists,

adding his responses to each of the accusations. He rejected the claims, for instance, of

those who found fault with Cimabue’s disegno and underlined the artist’s contributions to

the development of painting.79 He criticized others who judged Paolo Uccello and Andrea

del Castagno solely by their errors and failed to take account of their achievements.80 He

also made similar comments about the reproaches addressed to modern painters such as

Rosso Fiorentino, Battista Naldini and Francesco Salviati.81 While Cinelli does not name the

sources where he found these negative comments, he does say that they were not in line

with the ideas found in works by Vasari, Raffaello Borghini, Arcangelo Giani, Tommaso

Ferrini, Pierfrancesco Giambullari and Paolo Mini.82

The additions which Cinelli made to Bocchi’s text include historical data about

churches and transcriptions of inscriptions, as well as personal comments on new works of

art and on those previously described by Bocchi.83 Cinelli’s style of writing and the artistic

77 Ibid, p. 1: ‘e…stato da diversi Letterati forestieri chieste alcune notizie intorno alle cose cospicue della nostra Città.’ Cinelli, however, does not name them. 78 Ibid., pp. 1-2: ‘volsi legger le Bellezze di Firenze del Bocchi stampate nell’anno 1591, ma come che in quelle io non interamente soddisfatto restasi…di mente mi messi a fare alcune postille al medesimo libro’. 79 Ibid., p. 4: ‘cosi io non potro anche sentir biasimare il disegno di Cimabue benche lontano dal vero, ma devesi egli molto nondimeno commendare per esser stato il rinuovatore della pittura stata per la cinque secoli avanti’. 80 Among the authors he took issue with were Raffaello Borghini and Vasari; see ibid., p. 5. ‘Non meno lascerò di coprir quell’errore di Paolo Uccello, esagerato dal Borghini e Vasari nel cavallo dipinto nel Duomo.’ 81 Ibid., p. 6. Looking at Cinelli’s additions to Bocchi’s text only, it appears that the term ‘moderno’, specifically used in an artistic context, occurs 14 times. It refers to the following artists: Ciro Ferri (1634-1689): Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze, p. 166; Il Volteranno (1611-1689), Simone Pignoni (1611-1698), Sassoferrato (1609-1685), Carlo Dolci (1616-1686), Cesare Dandini (1596-1657): ibid., p. 269; Francesco Furini (1600-1646): ibid., p. 287; and Matteo Rosselli (1578-1650): ibid., p. 335. Cinelli also uses the term in order to make a distinction between ancient and modern statues or heads of statues; see ibid., pp. 221, 281 and 370. There is only one occasion where Cinelli refers to a sculptor as ‘modern’; see ibid., p. 169: ‘molte statue antiche e moderne, e fra queste una statua di marmo rappresentante la Fortezza di mano del [Giovanni Battista] Caccini.’ In the case of Bocchi’s first edition of his guidebook, the term ‘modern’ occurs 11 times and does not refer to any artist or work in particular, with one exception where it refers to Michelangelo’s Bacchus; see Bocchi, Le bellezze (1591), p. 47: ‘Nel mezzo poi della Galleria sono due Bacchi, uno antico di somma bellezza, stimato rarissimo da gli artefici et uno che è moderno del Buonarroto.’ 82 Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze, p. 22: ‘L’opere qui non nominate dalla loro autorità disgiunte non vanno, avendo per la minuta riscontrate col Vasari, Borghini, Giani, Ferrini, Giambullari, Mini’. 83 Cinelli’s additions caused Bocchi’s guidebook to double in length.

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terms he employed were modelled on Bocchi’s in an attempt to maintain the same general

lines.84 Above all, the aim of Cinelli’s revised edition, like that of Bocchi’s original, was to

promote Florentine art. This was achieved by describing the works of Florentine painters in

detail and by praising early Renaissance artists along with more recent ones. Cinelli’s

contributions to Bocchi’s original edition were not negligeable: there are around seventy

additional works of art before 1500, both on public display and in private collections, which

Bocchi had omitted.85 While, as expected, the number of works of art after 1591 which

Cinelli included in his edition is considerably higher than that of the earlier works, it is,

nevertheless, significant that he devoted so much attention to recording Trecento and

Quattrocento art. Eighty-six years after the publication of Bocchi’s guidebook, Cinelli felt

that the original edition needed to be updated not only by mentioning newly produced art

works but also by recovering earlier ones which had been omitted. While Cinelli only rarely

praises pre-1500 works,86 and his accounts do not reveal much about his personal taste,87

his approach to early art was at least more rigorous and thoroughgoing than Bocchi’s.

Paolo Mini’s Discorso della nobiltà di Firenze e de’ Fiorentini (1593)

In 1593, two years after the initial publication of Bocchi’s Le bellezze, the Florentine

physician and literato Paolo Mini (1526-1599) published a new work on Florence entitled

Discorso della nobiltà di Firenze e de’ Fiorentini.88 Like Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima, Mino’s

treatise is a laudatio of the city and its most famous citizens. It is divided into two parts: one

84 Among the terms used by both authors are industria, vivezza, artifizio and nobile. 85 These include works by painters and sculptors from Giotto to Botticelli: e.g., a crucifix by Giotto in San Marco (Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze, p. 16), the tabernacle by Andrea Orcagna in Orsanmichele (ibid., p. 15), a painting by Buffalmacco in San Michele (ibid., p. 70), a painting of the Virgin and Child by Filippo Lippi in San’Apostolo (ibid., p. 123) and a painting of the Virgin and Child by Botticelli in the Palazzo Pitti (ibid., p. 146). There are also other works by Fra Angelico, Andrea Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Donatello, Iacopo della Quercia and Paolo Uccello. Cinelli does not often indicate the subject of the paintings which he includes in his guidebook. 86

See, e.g., his description of Gaddo Gaddi’s mosaic of the coronation of the Virgin in Santa Maria del Fiore in Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze, p. 47: ‘L’immagine di Maria. Vergine di mosaico, ch’è sopra la porta principale per di dentro è di Gaddo, stimata in que’ tempi la più bell’opera che fusse di tal mestiero veduta per allora in Italia.’ 87 His comments consist merely of saying that a particular work is ‘beautiful’ or ‘most beautiful’; see ibid, p. 17: ‘una bellissima tavola di mano di Andrea Verrocchio’. 88 Paolo Mini, Discorso della nobiltà di Firenze e de’ Fiorentini, Florence 1593. For more information about Mini’s life and works, see F. Luti, ‘Paolo Mini’, in DBI, LXXIV, pp. 638-40.

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about the history of Florence, the other about its major figures, who are grouped according

to their professions. For artists, Mini dedicates two pages each to painters,89 sculptors90 and

architects.91 The section on painters goes from Cimabue to Michelangelo, with Mini

mentioning one or two characteristics of their styles. Giotto, he says, enriched Florentine

painting by giving it vigour and energy;92 Dello Delli added grace;93 Masaccio introduced

movement and liveliness to his figures;94 Benozzo Gozzoli invented original compositions;95

Filippo Lippi draped his figures and arranged their hair in such a way as to make them seem

unusual and rich;96 Leonardo painted with perfection;97 and Fra Bartolommeo’s special gifts

were beauty, clarity and colouring.98 Then follows a longer account of Michelangelo, at the

end of which Mini concludes that Florentine painting reached perfection with his works.

Mini’s section on painters is not detailed, and he does not mention or describe any works of

art,99 with the exception of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, which he mentions only very

briefly.100 His account of painters is hardly more than a chronological list of names; and the

stylistic characterstics which he attributes to each of them have little meaning when they are

not backed up with examples. In general, Mini does not give the impression that he was

very familiar with art works or that he had much knowledge of the history of art and its

development.

89 Mini, Discorso, pp. 107-8. 90 Ibid., pp. 108-9. 91 Ibid., pp. 110-11. 92 Ibid., p. 107: ‘le diede il polso e la lena’. 93 Ibid.: ‘Dello la grazia’. Vasari, in the second edition of his Vite, mentioned ‘grace’ in connection to Delli’s representations of small figures, but only to distinguish them from his larger compositions; see Vasari, Le vite (1568), I, p. 257: ‘figure piccole, nelle quali egli hebbe miglior grazia, che nelle grandi assai.’ Mini apparently took Vasari’s statement out of the context. 94 Ibid.: ‘Masaccio le movenze e la vivacità’. 95 Ibid.: ‘Benozzo Gozzoli l’invenzione’. 96 Ibid.: ‘Filippo Lippi le pannature, e le acconciature di teste bizzarre e ricche’. 97 Ibid.: ‘Leonardo da Vinci la perfezzione’. 98 Ibid.: ‘la vaghezza, e la pulitezza del colorire’. 99 Mini takes the same approach in his section dedicated to sculptors which begins with Andrea Orcagna and ends with Michelangelo. His section on architecture includes a list of the following artists: Andrea di Cione, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti and Michelangelo, without examples of their works or biographical details. 100 Mini, Discorso, p. 108: ‘il suo stupendo Giudizio, che in Roma è nella cappella di Sisto’.

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Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Guidebooks on Art

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more guidebooks to Florence were

published.101 Among the most important were Leopoldo del Migliore’s exhaustive Firenze

città nobilissima illustrata of 1684, Raffaello del Bruno’s Ristretto delle cose più notabili della città di

Firenze, first published in 1689 and reprinted many times throughout the eighteenth

century,102 and Gaetano Cambiagi’s L’antiquario fiorentino, ossia Guida per osservar con metodo le

rarità della città di Firenze of 1765, with numerous subsequent editions.103 A feature which

these Florentine guidebooks had in common was the methodical arrangement of

information: Cambiagi and del Migliore proposed itineraries starting at each of the nine

gates, while del Bruno structured his presentation as a series of fictitious journeys taking

place over a number of days, with each day corresponding to a different route.104 In either

case, they adhered to a pattern which added a practical dimension to their works.

Furthermore, following in the footsteps of Bocchi, some of these writers underlined the

importance of Florentine painters of the early Renaissance. Del Bruno, for instance,

pointed out that Cimabue and Giotto deserved to be esteemed as the first masters and

restorers of art, even though their paintings were not as beautiful as those by modern

painters. In his opinion, Cimabue and Giotto were the ‘ancient’ painters who merited

recognition and praise for their efforts to ‘restore’ painting,105 and their works had to be

appreciated particularly for their historical value. Del Bruno was not, however, consistent in

promoting these ideas: describing a number of works in Santa Maria delle Carmine, he

deliberately omits a few ancient paintings which he considers ‘insignificant’,106 and he fails

to mention Fra Angelico’s works in San Marco, which Landino and Bocchi had praised.107

101 For a chronological list of guidebooks to Florence between the 16th and 18th centuries, see J. Boutier, ‘Visiter Florence à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Le Ristretto delle cose più notabili de Rafaello del Bruno (1689)’, in Villes et représentations urbaines dans l’Europe méditerranéenne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle). Mélanges offerts à Henri Michel, ed. J. Fouilleron and R. Andréani, Montpellier 2011, pp. 51-8, at 57-8; see also Frangenberg, ‘Introduction’ to Bocchi, The Beauties, pp. 3-22, at p. 18. 102 It was republished six times: 1698, 1719, 1733, 1745, 1757 and 1767. Del Bruno was a member of the Florentine Academy and of the Accademia degli Apatisti; see Boutier, ‘Visiter Florence’, p. 54. 103 New editions, with the same title, followed in 1771, 1778 and 1781. It was reprinted under the title Guida al forestiero per osservare con metodo le rarità e bellezze della città di Firenze and published in 1790, 1793, 1798, 1804 and 1805; see Boutier, ‘Visiter Florence’, p. 58. 104 Del Bruno’s guidebook was divided into three parts, corresponding to a three-day journey to Florence; for the itineraries, see Boutier, ‘Visiter Florence’, p. 55. 105 Del Bruno, Il Ristretto, p. 83: ‘Paolo, detto degli Ucceli, Pittore antico’. 106 Ibid., p. 142: ‘Tralasciando alcune Tavole antiche, e di pregio minore’. 107 See ‘Introduction’ to ‘Part Two: Florentine Art Writings’, n. 16 and Chapter 6, n. 20 above.

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Del Bruno does sometimes take over elements from previous travel writings (like Bocchi,

he commends Masaccio for paving the way to the development of the modern style,108 and

he celebrates Donatello’s sculptures;109 but he does not reveal any specific criteria of

selection of his own and often does not justify his inclusion or omission of art works.

Gaetano Cambiagi’s guidebook offered readers a tour of the Florentine churches,

palaces and villas, and indicated which works of art they could admire in each place. His

accounts appear to be more enthusiastic than del Bruno’s: Cambiagi, for instance, invites

travellers to visit San Marco, among other churches, for the ‘most revered’ works of Fra

Angelico, and for Fra Bartolommeo’s Presentation of Christ into the Temple, which was of

‘extraordinary beauty’.110 There are, however, no elaborate descriptions of works of art

which might indicate Cambiagi’s own taste or preferences for earlier art or that of his

contemporaries. Instead, like del Bruno and his predecessors, Cambiagi embraced and

supported the idea that the works of Cimabue and Giotto had a historical value and that

they deserved admiration for the innovative elements which had led towards artistic

progress.111

The most comprehensive work in this category was Leopoldo del Migliore’s Firenze

città nobilissima illustrata. As Sansovino had done for Venice, del Migliore provided an

extensive account of Florence, its origins,112 government and monuments. An element of

novelty in this type of literature was the inclusion of architectural prints of the exterior

views of buildings such as Santa Maria del Fiore, SS Annunziata, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

and the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova. Another detail which made this Floretine

guidebook stand out from previous ones was the structure of del Migliore’s accounts.

When describing the chapels of the churches, he always numbers them, allowing readers, in

this way, to visualize the order of the chapels, as well as helping visitors to organize their

108 Del Bruno, Il Ristretto, p. 142: ‘fu il primo che aprisse la strada alla buona, e moderna maniera di dipignere’. 109 Ibid., p. 114: ‘e Donatello ne fece tre di marmo, le quali son tenute in gran pregio, come opere veramente meravigliose’. 110 Gaetano Cambiagi, L’antiquario fiorentino, ossia Guida per osservar con metodo le rarità della città di Firenze, Florence 1765, p. 34: ‘venerabilissime immagini del B. Gio. Angelico’; ‘Tavola di straordinaria bellezza e opera di Fr. Bartolommeo nella quale vi ha espressa la Presentazione di Gesù Bambino’. 111 Ibid., pp. 92-3: ‘oltre a tante Pitture di singolare perfezione, di già descritte, se ne trovano in questa Chiesa e nel convento alcune di Cimabue, e di Giotto, le quali quantunque siano dalle moderne pitture superate in bellezze, non e pero, che non meritino di essere tenute in grande stima, per la venerazione che si dee a quei due primi Maestri e Restauratori della Pittura.’ 112 Leopoldo del Migliore, Firenze città nobilissima, Florence 1684, sigs 3v-9v (‘Origine de Firenze e sue qualità’).

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tour of the church.113 His accounts are lengthy and dense, comprising information gathered

from both earlier and contemporary sources, which was meant to offer a complete

documentation on the history of the churches described, the events related to them and the

works of art which they contained. Del Migliore very rarely expresses any artistic

judgements on works of art;114 and such comments as he does make are not very detailed.

His main purpose was apparently to offer readers a well-documented history of Florence,

written in the form of an extended guidebook.

With the exception of Bocchi, later Florentine guidebook writers tended to re-

evaluate the art of the past from a historical point of view and to promote the monuments

of Florence, together with their works of art, as examples of artistic development. Unlike

the Venetian literature, in which the authors’ views on art works were often expressed, the

Florentine texts emphasized the historical recovery of the city’s artistic past and the origins

of Florentine art.

113 See, e.g., the description of two chapels in San Lorenzo: ibid., p. 163: ‘1. Cappella de’ Medici. La Tavola, in cui si rappresenta la Natività di Cristo, è di mano di Raffaellin del Garbo. Gregorio XIII nel 1576. Lo fece Altar Privilegiato.’ 2. Cappella de’ Ginori, di quelli che portano per aggiunta nell’arme un Giglio d’oro in azzurro, stante il Privilegio fatto a Antonio di Giuliano Ginori dal re Rinieri l’anno 1442. La Tavola è bellissima, rappresentante lo Sposalizio di nostra Donna, dipinto dal Rosso, quegli, il quale essendo stato in grado d’eccessiva benevolenza con Francesco I Rè di Francia...’ 3. Cappella dell’Inghirami, chiamati della penna d’argento, qual portan nell’Arme in un Listra azzurra e sghembo. La Tavola è antica, dipinta in sù l’asse con un S. Lorenzo alla Greca.’ 114 Ibid., p. 211: ‘la Vergine Maria con alcuni santi attorno, Tavola bellissima, e di F. Bartolommeo famoso

pittore’.

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CHAPTER 7

Florentine Biographies of Artists

Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of Early Italian Artists

In his La fortuna dei primitivi, Giovanni Previtali stated it was not possible to understand the

history of art before Raphael, from the perspective of posterity, without a reassessment of

Vasari’s Lives.1 In this section, I shall attempt to establish the extent to which Vasari himself

appreciated early Renaissance art and the way in which later writers embraced his views and

developed them further.2

In the first edition of his Lives, published in 1550, Vasari included ninety-three

biographies of artists prior to Raphael. As Charles Hope has shown, he relied on earlier

written sources in order to compose his biographies, especially those of Trecento artists;

among his sources were Albertini’s Memoriale, Il libro di Antonio Billi, Ghiberti’s second

commentary and Giovanni Villani’s Cronica.3 These writings laid the foundation for Vasari’s

biographies, which he then expanded by adding new material. In identifying and analysing a

selection of passages in praise of artists from Parts 1 and 2 of the Lives (from Cimabue to

Lorenzo di Bicci and from Jacopo della Quercia to Pietro Perugino), I shall attempt to

determine what they tell us in terms of appreciation for early Renaissance art and how they

shaped and influenced the views of Vasari’s followers.

Generally, Vasari’s biographies are in the form of descriptive and informative

accounts about the artists and their works, for which he usually mentions the subject and

the location. With regard to the biographies of artists from Part 1, it emerges that there are

fewer accounts which contain detailed descriptions and assessments of works than ones

which include simple lists of works and locations, without any further comments or

1 Previtali, La fortuna, pp. 3-40 (‘Il Cinquecento’), at p. 3. 2 In discussing passages from Parts 1 and 2 of the Lives in this chapter, I do not consider the problem of

authorship, nor do I attempt to distinguish between those sections which were written by Vasari himself and those which may have been written by his collaborators; on this issue, see Chapter 1, n. 49 above. 3 C. Hope, ‘The Lives of the Trecento Artists in Vasari’s First Edition’, in K. Burzer, C. Davis, S. Feser, A. Nova, eds, Le vite del Vasari: genesi, topoi, ricezione, Venice 2010, pp. 33-9, at p. 34. For an earlier discussion of Vasari’s sources, see W. Kallab, Vasaristudien, Vienna 1908, pp. 151-211.

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evaluations. Among the latter type are the biographies of Margaritone, Ugolino, Taddeo

Gaddi, Duccio, Spinello Aretino and Lorenzo di Bicci. For example, in his life of

Margaritone, Vasari writes:

He made throughout the whole city an infinity of pictures, and at Sargiano, a convent of

the Frati de’ Zoccoli, a St Francis portrayed from nature on a panel... Next, he made a large

crucifix on wood, painted after the Greek manner... And at Ganghereto, a place above

Terra Nuova in Valdarno, he made a St Francis.4

At the other end of the scale are biographies which contain fuller accounts and

extended descriptions of works of art. In the life of Giotto, for instance, we find a lengthy

passage about the frescoed stories of Beata Michelina in San Francesco at Rimini, which at

the time were attributed to him.5 In his description, Vasari is appreciative of the excellent

manner with which Giotto rendered the beautiful stories and of the gracious and life-like

figures. He then dwells on two of the scenes, drawing attention to the expressions and

emotions of the figures:

there is a young woman...as beautiful as ever a woman can be, who, in order to clear

herself from the false charge of adultery, is taking oath over a book in a most wonderful

attitude, holding her eyes fixed on those of her husband, who was making her take the oath

by reason of mistrust in a black son born from her, whom he could in no way bring himself

to believe to be his. She, even as the husband is showing disdain and distrust in his face, is

making clear with the purity of her brow and of her eyes, to those who are most intently

gazing on her, her innocence and simplicity, and the wrong that he is doing to her in

making her take oath and in proclaiming her wrongly as harlot.

4 Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 115: ‘Fece per tutta la città pitture infinite, e fuori della città similmente a Sargiano, convento de’ Frati del Zoccolo, et in una tavola un San Francesco ritratto di naturale, et in questa opera scrisse il suo nome, parendogli più del solito aver bene operato. Fece in legno un Crocifisso grande lavorato a la greca... Et a Ganghereto, luogo sopra Terranuova in Valdarno, un’altra tavola di San Francesco; see also Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, transl. G. du C. de Vere, 10 vols, London 1912-1915, I, p. 64. Although I have used de Vere’s translation, I have occasionally made alterations, which are marked in square brackets. 5 See Previtali, La fortuna, p. 6, and Hope, ‘Lives of the Trecento Artists’, p. 36

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In like manner, [this ingenious artist expressed] very great feeling in a sick man

stricken with certain sores, seeing that all the women who are round him, overcome by the

stench, are making certain grimaces of disgust, the most gracious in the world.6

This description appears to be based on a close and direct observation of these two scenes

in the painting. It is evocative and specific, providing details about the attitudes and feelings

of the figures. Vasari does not, however, speculate about the effect which the paintings

might have had on viewers, nor does he explain why he chose to describe only these two

scenes. The account is purely descriptive, without any explicit critical assessment, though

Vasari presumably decided to pay so much attention to these particular scenes because he

admired them.

In the life of Giottino, Vasari gives a similarly thorough description of the San

Remigio Deposition (fig. 69), concentrating on the artist’s skillful rendering of the emotions

and expressions of the mourners gathered around the dead Christ:

In this panel, which is placed in the tramezzo of the church, on the right hand, is a dead

Christ with the Maries and Nicodemus, accompanied by other figures, who are bewailing

his death with bitterness and with very sweet and affectionate movements, wringing their

hands with diverse gestures, and beating themselves in [such] a manner that in the air of the

faces their sharp sorrow at the...great cost of our sins [is shown very clearly]. And it is

something marvellous to consider, not that he penetrated with his genius to such a height

of imagination, but that he could express it so well with the brush. [Consequently], this

work is consummately worthy of praise, not so much [on account] of the subject and of

the invention, as because in it the craftsman has shown, in some heads that are weeping,

that although the lineaments of those that are weeping are distorted in the brows, in the

eyes, in the nose, and in the mouth, this, however, neither spoils nor alters a certain beauty

6 Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 124: ‘egli è cosa singularissima una giovane che v’è, bellissima quanto più esser si possa, la quale per liberarsi da la calumnia dello adulterio giura sopra di un libro, con gli occhi fissi negli occhi del proprio marito che giurar la faceva per diffidanza d’un figliuol nero partorito da lei, il quale in nissun modo che suo fusse poteva credere; costei, così come il marito mostra lo sdegno e la diffidenza nel viso, fa conoscere con la pietà della fronte e degli occhi, a coloro che intentissimamente la contemplano, la innocenzia e la simplicità sua et il torto che se la faceva in farla giurare e nel publicarla a torto per meretrice. Medesimamente grandissimo affetto fu quel ch’espresse questo ingegnosissimo artefice in un infermo che certe piaghe, dove tutte le femmine che vi sono dattorno, offese dal puzzo, fanno certi torcimenti schifosi i più graziati del mondo’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, I, pp. 83-4.

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which is wont to suffer much in weeping when the painters do not know well how to avail

themselves of the good methods of art.7

In this passage, Vasari adds to his detailed description a critical assessment of the work and

of the artist’s style, praising Giottino’s invenzione and execution of the panel, which lent an

air of solemnity to the composition.

In these two examples, Vasari chose to focus on the emotions which the painted

figures were experiencing rather than those of the viewers standing in front of them.8 The

passages, however, show that Vasari was familiar with the works which he described; and

his careful and detailed comments reveal an interest in the way in which two early artists

rendered a large spectrum of emotions and gestures.

There are other shorter observations in the biographies from Part 1 about the style

of artists, the innovations which they brought to painting and the works which Vasari

considered to be especially worthy of praise. In his biographies of Cimabue and Giotto, for

example, Vasari discusses the origins of Florentine painting and how these two artists

contributed to its progress. He says of Cimabue’s style: ‘although he still had the Greek

manner, [we see that he was] approaching in part to the line and method of the modern’.9

Discussing the primacy of Florentine art, Vasari claims that Cimabue ‘gave the first light to

the art of painting’,10 and that Giotto ‘alone, although born among inept craftsmen, by the

gift of God revived that art, which had come to a grievous pass, and brought it to such a

form as could be called good’.11 Also in relation to the progress and advancement of art,

Vasari singles out Stefano’s frescoes in Santo Spirito: ‘he showed so great art and so great

invention and proportion...and so great diversity from the other masters in his method of

7 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 171-2: ‘Questa tavola e posta nel tramezzo di detta chiesa a man destra, et evvi dentro un Cristo morto con le Marie intorno e co’ Niccodemi, accompagnati di altre figure le quali con amaritudine et atti dolcissimi et affettuosi piangono quella morte, torcendosi con diversi gesti di mani e battendosi di maniera che nella aria del viso si dimostra assai chiaramente l’aspro dolore del costar tanto i peccati nostri: et e cosa maravigliosa a considerare che e’ penetrasse mai con lo ingegno in si alta imaginazione. Questa opera è sommamente degna di lode non tanto per il suggettto della invenzione, quanto per avere egli mostrato in alcune teste che piangono, che ancora che il lineamento si storca nelle ciglia, negli occhi, nel naso e nella bocca di chi piagne, e non guasta pero ne altera una certa bellezza, che suol molto patire nel pianto da chi non sa valersi de l’arte’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, I, p. 207. 8 Hope, ‘Lives of the Trecento Artists’, p. 36. 9 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 105-6: ‘ancora che egli avesse la vecchia maniera, tuttavolta si vede che e’tenne il modo et il lineamento della moderna’. 10 Ibid., p. 103: ‘per dare i primi lumi all’arte della pittura’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, I, p. 3. 11 Ibid., p. 115: ‘egli solo, ancora che nato fra artefici inetti, con celeste dono, quella ch’era per mala via, resuscitò, e redusse ad una forma da chiamar buona’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, I, p. 71.

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working, that [it does not appear to me innapropriate to confer on him the title of

knowledgeable investigator of the new] manner of the moderns’.12

These examples from Part 1 indicate that Vasari’s approach to early Renaissance art

was essentially that of an historian, acknowledging the importance of artists who belonged

to the Tuscan tradition and who paved the way for later artistic developments. As for

Vasari’s attitude towards Trecento art, his observations are positive when compared to

what he says about pre-1300 art, and he singles out elements from some works of art for

praise.

Turning now to the lives of Quattrocento artists, presented in Part 2 of the Lives:

many passages continue to display the descriptive character found in Part 1, but Vasari

provides more in the way of assessment in Part 2. For instance, in his presentation of the

frescoes begun by Masolino in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Vasari not

only discusses the scenes in great detail but also examines them critically:

He painted there the shipwreck of the Apostles in the tempest, and the scene when St Peter

is delivering his daughter Petronilla from sickness; and in the same scene [he and St John

go] to the Temple, where, in front of the portico, there is the lame beggar asking for

alms, and St Peter, not being able to give him either gold of silver, is delivering with the

sign of the Cross. Throughout all that work the figures are made with very good grace, and

they show grandeur in the manner, softness and harmony in the colouring, and relief

and force in the draughtsmanship; the work was much esteemed [on account of] its novelty

and [attention to detail].13

Similar descriptions are found in the biographies of other Quattrocento artists,

including Masaccio,14 Paolo Uccello15 and Parri Spinelli.16 In each case, Vasari makes

12 Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 131: ‘quivi con giudicio straordinario modernamente operando, d’arte, d’invenzione, di proporzione e di giudizio...si dimostrò talmente eccellente e dagli altri maestri diverso, che mi pare che non se gli disconvenga il titolo d’accorto e di savio investigatore della nuova maniera moderna’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, I, p. 110 13 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 261-2: ‘fecevi il tempestoso naufragio degli apostoli, e quando San Pietro libera da’l male Petronella sua figliuola e nella medesima storia quando egli e giovanni vanno al tempio, dove innanzi al portico e quel povero infermo che gli chiede la limosina, al quale non potendo dare ne oro, ne argento, col segno della croce lo libera; fatte le figure per tutta quell’opera con molta buona grazia, e datoli grandezza nella maniera, morbidezza et unione nel colorire e rilievo e forza nel disegno. La quale opera fu stimata molto per la novita sua e per l’osservanzia di molti parti’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, II, p. 166; see also Previtali, La fortuna, pp. 3-7 (‘Il Vasari e l’arte del passato: conoscenze e metodo’), at p. 6. 14 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 271-2, for Masaccio’s frescoes in Santa Maria del Carmine.

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comments about the artist’s style, the use of colours and the attitudes of the figures

depicted. These seem largely to be standard observations which do not necessarily reflect

his own experience of the work or his artistic preferences.17 Nevertheless, they indicate the

features which he felt his readers should look out for when viewing a Quattrocento

painting.

One of the most relevant passages for our purposes comes in the biography of

Filippo Lippi. Here, Vasari discusses the cycle of frescoes with stories from the life of St

Stephen and St John the Baptist in Prato cathedral. Referring to the scene of the

martyrdom and the funeral of St Stephen,Vasari remarks that ‘in those who are burying St

Stephen, [Lippi] made gestures so dolorous, and some faces so afflicted and broken with

weeping that it is scarcely possible to look at them without being moved’. 18 In contrast to

the biographies from Part 1, where, as we have seen, Vasari described the emotions and

attitudes of the painted figures without suggesting how viewers might respond to such

compositions, in this case he anticipates the effect of the painting on viewers. This provides

a hint that among the elements of Quattrocento religious paintings which Vasari

appreciated was their ability to arouse feelings of piety and empathy in viewers – a notion

which would later appear more explicitly in the Venetian writers Ridolfi and Boschini.

In his biographies of early Renaissance artists, Vasari offers more or less detailed

accounts of their works, which he sometimes assesses critically, especially in Part 2.

Occasionally, he expresses admiration for particular works; but rather than representing his

own taste, most of his observations on earlier works of art refer to the beginnings of Italian

painting and its later progress. One indicator of artistic progress in this period was the

extent to which art works stirred religious feeling. An assessment of the colouring,

draughtsmanship and manner in which artists depicted religious figures and subjects,

rendered gestures, attitudes and facial expressions helped to determine the impact these

15 Ibid., pp. 238-9, for Uccello’s frescoes in Santa Maria Novella. 16 Ibid., pp. 263-4, for Spinelli’s works in Arezzo. 17 We can assume this because we know that Vasari did not always have access to the works of art he included in his book. For instance, he wrote appreciatively about Giotto’s frescoes in Assisi, singling out the ordine, proporzione, vivezza and facilità, even though he never saw them; see Hope, ‘Lives of the Trecento Artists’, p. 35 and n.1, and Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 121. 18 Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 379: ‘da far conoscere altrui quanto vaglia la invenzione del sapere esprimere gli affetti nelle pitture; il che sì bene osservo costui, che in coloro che sotterrano Santo Stefano fece attitudini sì dolenti et alune teste si afflitte e dirotte al pianto, che e non è appena possibile di guardarle senza commuoversi’, and translation in Vasari, Lives, III, p. 85.

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works had on the viewers and to identify the contribution of each early artist to advances in

painting. So, while Venetian writers on art were keen to demonstrate the superiority of the

city’s artists by praising their achievements, Vasari’s perspective was essentially

historiographical,19 attempting to trace the origins and development of painting in Italy. The

question of how much Vasari himself appreciated early Renaissance artists and how much

he copied from earlier written sources is a complex and controversial one. Some scholars

have suggested that Vasari relied heavily on such accounts, together with information

provided by his contemporaries, which he then built on and expanded.20 It is not always

clear, moreover, whether the passages in praise of Trecento and early Quattrocento artists

reflect Vasari’s own view of their works or instead follow a pattern already established by

his predecessors. As we have seen in the passages analysed above, there is a rich array of

artistic terms associated with the works discussed in Vasari’s book.21 Furthermore, in the

third ‘proemio’ of his Le vite, Vasari introduces five qualities which he associates with

architecture and painting: regola, ordine, misura, disegno22 and maniera23 – which together

constituted the perfetta regola dell’arte.24 These five key concepts are not, however, explicitly

19

On Vasari’s conception of history, see Kallab, Vasaristudien; Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 315-22 (‘Visione storica generale del Vasari’); E. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, Chicago 1955, pp. 169-235 (‘The First Page of Giorgio Vasari’s “Libro”: A Study on the Gothic Style in the Judgement of the Italian Renaissance’), at p. 169; Gombrich Norm and Form, pp. 1-10 (‘The Renaissance Conception of Artistic Progress and its Consequences’); P. Barocchi, Studi vasariani, Turin 1984, pp. 157-70 (‘L’antibiografia del secondo Vasari’); P. L. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, New Haven and London 1995. According to Z. Wazbinski, ‘L’idée de l’histoire dans la première et la seconde édition des Vies de Vasari’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista; pp. 1-21, at p. 1, n. 1, Vasari envisaged three historical periods, corresponding to the development of the arts, which he imagined in terms of a biological metaphor: the incipient stage (between 1250 and 1400); the developmental period (from 1400 to 1500); and the apogee (between 1500 and 1550). 20 See Hope, ‘The Lives of the Trecento Artists’; see also Kallab, Vasaristudiesn, pp. 146, 436-7. 21 For an extensive discussion of Vasari’s artistic vocabulary, including terms such as unione, chiaro scuro, lume, morbido, imitazione, bizzarro, capriccioso, see R. Le Mollè, Georges Vasari et le vocabulaire, Grenoble 1988. See also J. M. M. Garcia, Giorgio Vasari y la formulación de un vocabulario artistico, Málaga 2002. 22 See Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture, pp. 29-72 (‘Vasari’s Concept of Disegno’). For Vasari’s definition of disegno, see Vasari/Milanesi, I, (‘Introduzione’). p. 168-9: ‘Perchè il disegno, padre delle arti nostre, Architettura, Scultura e Pittura, procedendo dall’intelletto cava di molte cose un giudizio universale; simile a una forma ovvero idea di tutte le cose della natura, la quale è singolarissima nelle sue misure; di qui è che non solo nei corpi umani e degli animali, ma nelle piante ancora, e nelle fabbriche e sculture e pitture, conosce la proporzione che ha il tutto con le parti, e che hanno le parti fra loro e col tutto insieme.’ Vasari then connects disegno to two other artistic expressions, buona grazia and buona maniera, which often crop up in his assessments of works of arts; see ibid., pp. 172-3: ‘i contorni delle figure; le quali dintornate come elle debbono, mostrano buona grazia e bella maniera.’ See also S. Alpers, ‘Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes in Vasari’s Lives’, The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Insitutes, 23, 1960, pp. 190-215, at p. 205. 23 Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 539-44 (‘Proemio alla terza parte delle Vite), at p. 539: ‘regola, ordine, misura, disegno e maniera’; these five terms come from Vitruvius; see Alpers, ‘Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes in Vasari’s Lives’, pp. 190 and 192; see also, D. Cast, ‘Speaking of Architecture: The Evolution of a Vocabulary in Vasari, Jones and Sir John Vanbrugh’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 52, 1993, pp. 179-88. 24 Vasari/Milanesi, IV, pp. 7-15 (‘Proemio alla terza parte’), at p. 7: ‘a giudicare con la perfetta regola dell’arte’.

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used to assess any individual work of art mentioned in the book and only appear in

combination in this ‘proemio’.25 While twentieth-century art historians attached great

importance to Vasari’s ‘aesthetic vision’ and the contribution of the artistic vocabulary in Le

vite to the development of art criticism,26 we do not know whether earlier readers of Vasari’s

work interpreted it in this way.27

In the following sections, I shall explore how Vasari’s followers and editors read the

Lives and how they dealt with his views: did they, like him, focus on telling the history of

Italian painting or, instead, expressed more of their own judgements and taste?

Vasari’s Editors (1647-1794)

During the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, four new editions of

Vasari’s Lives appeared.28 The first was edited by Carlo Manolessi and published in 1647 in

Bologna.29 This was followed by three later ones: Giovanni Bottari’s Roman edition of

1759;30 Tommaso Gentili’s edition published from 1767 to 1772 in Livorno and dedicated

to Peter Leopold of Hungary and Bohemia;31 and, finally, the edition of Guglielmo della

Valle, published in Siena between 1791 and 1794.32 It is worth noting that these editions

25 See n. 23 above. 26 On Vasari’s ‘aesthetic vision’, see V. de Ruvo, ‘La concezione estetica di Giorgio Vasari’, in Studi vasariani: Studi vasariani: atti del convegno internazionale per il IV centenario della prima edizione delle ‘Vite’ del Vasari, Florence 1952, pp. 47-56; Schlosser, La letteratura, pp. 323-46 (‘Il punto di vista estetico e critico del Vasari’), and T. S. R. Boase, ‘The Critic’, in his Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book, Princeton 1979, pp. 119-48, esp. 123-9, where he discusses Vasari’s use of terms such as grazia, vaghezza, leggiadria, morbidezza, terribilità, fierezza and maniera. 27 That the third ‘Proemio’ in which Vasari discusses the five ‘concepts’ was omitted entirely from Tommaso Gentili’s edition of the Vite and replaced by the editor’s own ‘Prefazione’ in Guglielmo della Valle’s edition indicates that it was not always considered to be significant; see Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Guglielmo della Valle, 11 vols, V, Siena 1791-1794, pp. 1-20 (‘Prefazione’). I thank Professor Charles Hope for drawing my attention to this point. 28 For the purposes of this dissertation, I have decided to focus on these four editions. For other emendations to Vasari’s Le vite by authors such as Leopoldo del Migliore and Giulio Mancini, see P. Barocchi, ‘Le postille di Del Migliore alle Vite vasariane’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista : atti del Congresso Internazionale nel IV centenario della morte, Arezzo-Firenze, 2-8 settembre 1974, Florence 1976, pp. 439-47, and E. Carrara, ‘Spigolature vasariane. Per un riesame delle ‘‘Vite’’ e della loro fortuna nella Roma di primo Seicento’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 54, 2010-2012, pp. 155-84. 29 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Carlo Manolessi, 4 vols, Bologna 1647. 30 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Giovanni Bottari, 3 vols, Rome 1759-1760. 31 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Tommaso Gentili, 7 vols, Livorno, 1767-1772. 32 See n. 27 above.

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were all published outside Florence, which indicates that from the late seventeenth century

onwards Italian publishers beyond the city also took an interest in disseminating the

content of Vasari’s Lives.

In my analysis of these editions, I shall attempt to identify the reasons for the

proliferation of new editions of the Lives, especially in the second half of the eighteenth

century, considering, in particular, the innovations which they contained and asking

whether these changes altered the original text and how they might have affected the way

readers reacted to early Renaissance works of art. I shall concentrate on the notes which the

editors added to the lives of artists from Cimabue to Raphael.

Carlo Manolessi’s Edition (1647)

Seventy-nine years after the publication of the second edition of Vasari’s Lives, a new

edition appeared, which, however, received criticism from later editors.33 It was edited by

Carlo Manolessi and dedicated to Ferdinand II of Tuscany. Manolessi was born in Ancona

and began his editorial activity in 1636.34 His tasks included writing dedications and

prefaces to readers, as well as inserting his own comments and additions into the books

which he re-edited. Some of the most significant projects he was entrusted with included

the reprinting of Ulisse Aldrovandi’s works and the publication of scientific treatises by

Galileo Galilei (fig. 70) and Luca Valerio (fig. 71).35

The new edition of Vasari’s Lives appears to be the only artistic work which

Manolessi edited. As he announced in the preface, there was a great demand from the

33 Manolessi’s edition was considered to be inferior to Vasari’s 1568 edition because of the poor quality of the paper, the portraits and the printing; see Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, I.1, p. 2: ‘Questa edizione riuscita inferiore a quella de’ Giunti, anche per la carta, e pel carattere, non ebbe la medesima riputazione’; and Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. 6: ‘I ritratti deteriorati, la divisione dei tomi diversa da quella fatta e lodata da Giorgio nostro, e le postile indicanti soltanto nel margine cio che quegli dice nel testo, la carta inferiore a quella dei Giunti e il carattere da peggior madre derivato bastano a dichiararla con tutta ragione indegna del confronto.’ Manolessi’s edition nevertheless served as model for Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice in terms of its structure and illustrations; see E. Cropper, ‘A Plea for Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice’, in Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: Lives of the Bolognese Painters, I: Early Bolognese Painting, ed. and transl. E. Cropper and L. Pericolo, London 2012, pp. 1-47, at p. 4. 34 See D. Ruggerini, ‘Carlo Manolessi’, in DBI, LXIX, pp. 138-40. 35 Ibid., p. 139: Ulisse Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae hoc est de avibus historiae libri XII, Bologna 1681; Galileo Galilei, Opere, 2 vols, Bologna 1656; and Luca Valerio, De centro gravitatis solidorum, Bologna 1661.

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‘Università de’ Virtuosi’ for a reprint of Vasari’s book.36 Therefore, in taking charge of the

project, Manolessi’s main concern was to preserve the original form of the book together

with the illustrations.37 He published the Lives in three volumes (figs 72-74): the original

volume one was divided into two separate volumes, the first containing Parts 1, 2 and some

of Part 3, and the second the remainder of Part 3. While he did not alter the original text,38

Manolessi added notes in the margins, summarizing the content of important passages.39

He also supplied illustrations for the artists whose portraits Vasari had not provided such as

Benvenuto Garofalo, Pietro Cavallini, Antonio da Coreggio and Giulio Clovio.40 In the

1568 edition, Part 3 of Vasari’s Lives had taken up two of the three volumes, which were of

unequal length and were divided into ‘vol. 2i’ and ‘vol. 2ii’; Manolessi equalized the length

but retained the same sequence of the lives as in the 1568 edition, so that Part 3 still began

with Leonardo.

The main novelty claimed by Manolessi was new and better indexes, in which

various lists appeared continuously at the end of the third volume, rather than separately as

in the second edition.41 The first was an alphabetical list of the names of all the artists

mentioned by Vasari, as well as the new ones added by Manolessi.42 The second was an

index of places, grouping together all the works found in each location.43 Finally, he

36 Vasari/Manolessi, Le vite (‘Carlo Manolessi a lettori’), pp. [vi-ix], at p. [vii]: ‘Son restato assicurato dalla molta dimanda, che se n’è fatta fin’ora dall’Università de’ Virtosi.’ The Accademia degli Apatisti, formerly known as ‘Comunità di Virtuosi e Letterati’, was founded in 1631 in Florence. 37Ibid.: ‘il disiderio di pubblicar queste Vite nella stessa forma in tutto col primo Originale, cioè co’ Ritratti medesimi e ornamenti, con cui furon stampate in Firenze da i Giunti l’anno 15[-]7.’ 38 Vasari/Manolessi, Le vite, pp. [vii-ix] (‘Carlo Manolessi a lettori’), at p. [vii]: ‘La frase; e ortografia è in tutto la stessa del Vasari.’ 39 Ibid.: ‘Hò procurato per maggior commodità, d’aggiungere le postile in margini, perche possa ciascheduno rinvenire più facilmente le cose notabili’. For a few examples of Manolessi’s annotations to the life of Cimabue, see ibid., p. 4: ‘Lascia un lavoro imperfetto’, ‘Dipinge con molto disegno in Firenze nel chiostro di S. Spirito’, ‘Manda alcuni lavori ad Empoli’, ‘Lavora a tempera di un Christo in Croce in S. Francesco di Pisa’, ‘Morte di Cim. Lascia molti discipoli’. His annotations to the other biographies are of the same type. 40 Ibid.: ‘ho aggiunti i Ritratti di Benvenuto Garofalo, Pietro Cavallini, Antonio da Correggio, D. Giulio Clovio, e altri che non capitarono già mai al Vasari’. 41 Ibid.: ‘Ma la mia maggior fatica, e la più accurata diligenza si è stata intorno alle Tavole. Le ho primieramente unite tutte.’ 42 Ibid., p. [viii]: ‘ho posto distintamente la parte, e la pagina, in cui dell’artefice si fa menzione, e questa è la prima, alla quale si sono aggiunti alcuni nomi trascurati nella passata edizione’. 43 Ibid.: ‘Seconda Tavola, ch’è de luoghi ove si trovano l’opere de maestri’. In the original index, as Manolessi tells us, this was not done methodically; see ibid: ‘Con avvertenza di procedere ordinatatissimamante ponendo tutte le opere d’una chiesa sotto il suo titolo, il che non è stato osservato ne’ primi, ove si mettevano alcune Pitture d’un luogo, poi si parlava d’un’altro, e poscia al primiero si ritornava.’

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reorganized the list of the notable matters in order to make it easier for the readers to

consult.44

Manolessi’s main editorial effort thus consisted in supplying marginal notes,

rearranging the organization of the volumes and improving the indexes. He did not add

information about works of art; nor is there any evidence that he had first-hand knowledge

of those discussed by Vasari. Apart from supplying the demand for a new printing of the

Lives, the primary purpose of the edition seems to have been to pay tribute to ‘the

generosity and magnanimity of the house of the Medici under whose auspices the book was

published’.45

Giovanni Bottari’s Edition (1759-1760)

It was more than one hundred years before another edition of Vasari’s Lives was published.

It was edited by the Florentine scholar, antiquarian and theologian Giovanni Gaetano

Bottari (1689-1775) (fig. 75). Beginning his editorial activity in 1716, he was put in charge of

the grand-ducal printing press in Florence and brought out many works such as Benedetto

Averani’s Florentini Dissertationes (1716-1717) and Galilei’s Opere (1718).46 He also supervised

the publication of books about art, including the second edition of Raffaello Borghini’s Il

Riposo in 1730,47 on which he collaborated with the Florentine collector and connoisseur

Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri.48

The importance of Bottari’s new edition of Vasari’s Lives was first acknowledged by

modern scholarship in 1964, when Giovanni Previtali described ‘Bottari as the first in

modern times who felt the urge to restore the Vasarian foundations by editing and

annotating the Lives’.49 More recently, Paula Findlen has associated Bottari’s enterprise with

44 Ibid.: ‘nè mi è stato grave replicar le stesse cose sotto diverse lettere per riuscire più ispedito, e più commodo al disiderio di chi ricerca’. 45 Ibid., p. [ix]: ‘quella del Serenissimo Gran Duca di Toscana, la magnanimità de’ cui Antenati, e propria non ha già mai perdonato à spese eccessive per rendersi adorna di si rare fatiche, e per pubblicare al secolo che la Serenissima Casa de Medici giustamente gode il famoso titolo di Vero Mecenate di queste nobilissime professioni’. 46 G. Pignatelli, ‘Giovanni Gaetano Bottari’, in DBI, XIII, pp. 409-16, at p. 409. 47 The first edition of Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo was published in Florence in 1584. 48 On Gabburri, see Chapter 8 below. 49 See G. Previtali, La fortuna dei primitivi, p. 73: ‘il Bottari abbia sentito il bisogno, primo nell’età moderna, di recuperare, come primo passo di quest’opera riscoperta, la base di partenza vasariana, facendosi editore ed annotatore delle Vite’, and Frangenberg, ‘The Limits of a Genre: Giovanni Bottari’s Edition of Vasari’s Lives

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other eighteenth-century practices of recovering the artistic past, its history and origins.50

His attempt to recuperate the past through Vasari’s Lives grew out of the belief that the

Renaissance of the arts in Florence had been conditioned by the art which preceded it.51

This was why he and his contemporaries supported the opening of a Christian museum

adjacent to the Vatican Library under the patronage of Pope Benedict XIV.52 Both

Lodovico Muratori and Scipione Maffei were advocates of this project, which materialized

in 1757,53 the year in which Giovanni Lami wrote his essay on the pre-1300 art.54 It is

against this background that we need to consider Bottari’s edition of Vasari, which came

out two years later.

Vasari’s text was issued in three parts between 1759 and 1760 by the publishers

Niccolò and Marco Pagliarini (figs 76-78). Each volume had a different dedicatee: the first

to Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia (1751-1819), the second to Victor Amadeus, Duke

of Savoy (1726-1796) and the third to Benedetto Maria Maurizio, Duke of Chablais (1741-

1808). In the first dedication, Bottari (1689-1775) announced that in the edition he was

presenting to King Charles Emmanuel he had corrected ‘innumerable errors’ and supplied

the text ‘with suitable annotations, needed to clarify matters in many places and to amplify

the information’.55

In this preface, Bottari goes through the previous editions of Vasari’s Lives, pointing

out their improvements as well as their drawbacks, before justifying his own editorial

work.56 He begins with a short account of the 1550 edition, mentioning that it was

published in two volumes in Florence by Lorenzo Torrentino, in a beautiful font, but that it

was less detailed than the second edition, having no illustrations and containing fewer and

(1759-1760)’, in K. Burzer, C. Davis, S. Feser and A. Nova, eds, Le vite del Vasari: genesi, topoi, ricezione, Venice 2010, pp. 293-300, at p. 293. 50 P. Findlen, ‘The 2012 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture: The Eighteenth-Century Invention of the Renaissance: Lessons from the Uffizi’, Renaissance Quarterly, 66, 2013, pp. 1-34. 51 Ibid., p. 16. 52 Bottari mentioned this idea in the preface to his anthology of texts, Sculture e pitture, III, p. XVII: ‘sarebbe una delle più insigni maraviglie del Mondo’; see C. Gauna, La storia pittorica di Luigi Lanzi: arti, storia e musei nel Settecento, Florence 2003, p. 20, and p. 45, on the notion of a ‘museo sacro’. 53 Findlen, ‘Lessons from the Uffizi’, p. 15. 54 Giovanni Lami, Dissertazione...relativa ai pittori e scultori che fiorirono dal 1000 al 1300’, Florence 1792; for a detailed discussion on Lami’s text and an English translation, see B. Cole, ‘Art Historians and Art Critics – X: Giovanni Lami’s Dissertazione’, The Burlington Magazine, 115, 1973, pp. 452-7. 55Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, p. IV: ‘per presentarle umilmente un’Opera tanto celebre e stimata, ora corretta da me, per quanto ho potuto, da innumerabili errori, e corredata di Annotazioni opportune, e necessarie per ischiarirla in molti luoghi, e per ampliarne le notizie’. 56 Ibid., pp. IX-XVII (‘L’autore di questa edizione a’cortesi lettori’).

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shorter biographies.57 Moving on to the 1568 edition, Bottari writes that it was published in

three volumes, contained illustrations and was much fuller.58 Later on he says that because

the two editions were no longer available for purchase in the seventeenth century, a new

editor, Carlo Manolessi decided to produce a revised edition. The changes made by

Manolessi consisted of a new division of the volumes and the addition of marginal

comments. Bottari, however, judges that this editon was inferior to the second one, since it

was marred by mistakes and in some places lacked entire pages.59

Bottari’s views on Vasari’s work were informed by Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice, Ridolfi’s

Le meraviglie dell’arte, Giovanni Baglione’s Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti,60 Cinelli’s edition

of Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Firenze, Giuseppe Richa’s Notizie istoriche delle chiese di

Firenze,61 Filippo Titi’s Ammaestramento utile e curioso di pittura, scultura e architettura nelle chiese di

Roma62 and Antonio Massini’s Bologna perlustrata,63 as he states in the preface.64 He also lists

all the innovative features of his edition. In the first place, he decided to commission new

illustrations which required a different technique: instead of woodcuts, he preferred

copperplate engravings.65 The reason for this change, he explained, was that in the absence

of a modern equivalent of earlier engravers such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Ugo da

Carpi (c. 1480-1520/1532), Antonio da Trento (1508-1550), Andrea Andreani (1558/1559-

1629) and Bartolomeo Coriolano (1590/1599-1676), the only way to match the quality of

the original illustrations was to resort to copperplate engravings and to find two Italian

printmakers whose work would best fulfil his intentions.66 Thus, while the same portraits

57 Ibid., pp. IX-X: ‘queste sue Vite in due tomi in Firenze l’anno 1550, senza nome di stampatore...vedendosi chiaramente dalla bellezza, e forma de’ caratteri, essere stato il Torrentino. Questa edizione fu più scarsa di quella, che ne fece dopo, essendovi meno Vite, e le Vite per lo più essendovi più brevi, e mancandovi i ritratti che si veggono nella seconda.’ 58 Ibid., p. X: ‘la seconda, la quale fu fatta pure in Firenze l’anno 1568 da Giunti in tre tomi, ornata de’ detti ritratti, e più copiosa’. 59 Ibid.: ‘sono i molti errori, che scorsero nell’edizione de’ Giunti, e molto più in quella del Manolessi, dove qualche volta si è trovato mancare una pagina intera’. 60 Giovanni Baglione, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori, e architetti, Rome 1642. 61 Giuseppe Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese di Firenze, 4 vols, Florence 1754. 62 Filippo Titi, Ammaestramento utile e curioso di pittura, scoltura et architettura nelle chiese di Roma, 12 vols, Rome 1686. 63 Antonio Masini, Bologna perlustrata, Bologna 1650. See 64 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, p. XII: ‘A questo fine mi sono servito del Malvasia, del Ridolfi, del Baglioni &c. e del Cinelli, e dell’erudito, e diligente P. Richa, del Titi, del Masini &c.’ 65 The prints were made by Francesco Bartolozzi and Antonio Capellani; see C. M. Goguel, ‘Revival Vasariano’, in K. Burzer, C. Davis, S. Feser and A. Nova, eds, Le vite del Vasari: genesi, topoi, ricezione, Venice 2010, pp. 301-16, at p. 307. 66 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, pp. XIV-XV: ‘i ritratti non intagliati in legno ma bensì in rame, e da due de’ buoni professori, che ora si trovino in Italia...tanto più che ora non ci è un Alberto Duro, un Ugo da Carpi, un Antonio

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were kept, they were reproduced in a larger scale.67 Another advantage, as Bottari informs

us, of the new illustrations was that they were printed on folios which were separate from

the text and could therefore circulate independently of the book.68 This change enhanced

the function of the prints, making them collectable and the visual equivalent of writings on

famous men.69

In the last part of the preface, Bottari defends Vasari from the attacks of non-

Florentine writers. Rebutting their complaints about this Florentine campanilismo, he

maintains that Vasari praised not just Florence but the whole of Tuscany, promoting the

features on account of which this region surpassed all others in terms of artistic

achievement.70

Like Manolessi, Bottari, too, redid Vasari’s indexes. His edition had four lists:

notable matters (incorporating Vasari’s index of notable places), the names of the artists,

the names of everyone mentioned in the book and works of art.71 Most of his annotations

involved adding information about works of art which were lost or had been moved to new

locations and about their condition after restoration or reproduction in the form of prints.

This can be seen in the first volume, which includes biographies from Cimabue to Luca

Signorelli (the same as the first volume of the 1568 edition). In the life of Cimabue, for

instance, Bottari adds notes stating that the artist’s representation of St Francis was still in

good condition in his day,72 and that the crucifix in San Francesco in Pisa appeared as if it

da Trento, un Andrea Andreasso da Mantova, un Bartolommeo Coriolano Bolognese, e simili intagliatori.’ Although Bottari does not identify the engravers who printed the artists’ portraits, the one of Vasari has the name of the engraver printed on the left: ‘Antonius Gregori’; there is no indication, however, in the other portraits of the second engraver. 67 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, p. XV: ‘si sono ingranditi in maniera’. 68 Ibid.: ‘chi vorra provvedersi di questi ritratti senza il libro, il potrà fare, e lo stampatore è pronto a dargli a chi gli vorrà’. They were grouped under the title of Nuova raccolta di ritratti dei pittori; see Goguel, ‘Revival Vasariano’, p. 307 69 See, e.g., Giovanni Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium (Paris 1520), ed. L. Brewer Hall, Gainesville 1962; Francesco Petrarca, De viris illustribus, ed. C. Malta, Messina 2008; and Paolo Giovio, Elogi degli uomini ilustri (1546), ed. F. Minonzio, Turin 2006; see also S. Gregory, Vasari and the Renaissance Print, Farnham 2012, pp. 63-131, esp. pp. 83-6. 70

Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, p. XVII: ‘Parebbe convenevole il difendere il Vasari dai morsi molto fieri, d’alcuni Scrittori non Toscani, che l’ hanno tacciato almeno almeno d’appassionato, e passando anche innanzi d’invidioso, e di maligno, perchè ha narrato molte più Vite, e opere di Fiorentini, che di forestieri.’ 71 Ibid., p. XVI: ‘È vero, ch’egli inoltre fa la tavola de’ luoghi, dove sono le opere qui descritte, ma questa sarà compresa nell’Indice delle cose notabili.’ 72 Ibid., p. 2, n. 1: ‘Questo ritratto è anche oggi ben conservato, ed è posto sull’altare della cappella di S. Francesco.’

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had just been painted.73 In a note about Andrea Tafi’s Christ on the Cross in San Giovanni,

Bottari writes that while Cinelli criticized the way in which Tafi rendered the hands of

Christ, Baldinucci praised the work.74 He thus makes it clear that two contemporary writers,

who were both promoting Florentine art, had different perceptions of the same work.75

Bottari does not, however, tell readers what he himself thinks about Tafi’s painting; and

most of the time he does not venture to make attributions. Even though he was a very

knowledgeable amateur of art, he chose to offer readers the opinions of other writers rather

than his own.76

One of Bottari’s main concerns was reporting on matters of conservation and

restoration. In his notes to the life of Giotto, for example, he assesses of the colouring of

his frescoes, as well as indicating which of his works are no longer extant.77 On many

occasions, he expresses regret at the loss of several works, including some by Masaccio78

and Andrea del Castagno.79 He also laments and criticizes the fact that many of these works

have not been reproduced in the form of prints in order to allow posterity to appreciate

73 Ibid., p. 2, n. 4: ‘Questo crocifisso più grande del naturale appeso pendente sopra la porta interiore della chiesa par dipinto pocchi anni fà.’ 74 Ibid., p. 31, n. 1: ‘Questo Cristo fu criticato dal Cinelli nelle Bellezze di Firenze a c. 30 per avergli Andrea fatto le braccia, e le mani aperte, ma la mano destra col dito grosso dalla parte di sopra, e la sinistra dalla parte di sotto della mano. Ma il Baldinucci Dec 1. a c. 31. lo difende benissimo’; see Bocchi/Cinelli, Le bellezze, p. 30: ‘Fece poi egli solo il Cristo d’altezza di sette braccia, che è sopra la cappella maggiore, nella qual opera fece quel magnifico spropositone, d’effigiargli una mano a rovescio: ma si vede nondimeno compatire, perchè il disegno era alor rozzo, e rinascente di fresco, e non aveva ancora ripreso il vigore d’oggi giorno’, and Baldinucci, Notizie, I, pp 75-6: ‘Fin qui l’autore, il quale nell’affermar tal cosa molto s’ingannò, perchè qualunque professore di quest’arti, che osserverà quella mano, chiaramente riconoscerà non esser ella altrimenti stata fatta a rovescio, ma a diritto; ani con molto ingegnoso avvedimento dell’artefice... Che poi la mano sinistra, che è quella che dall’autore è stata creduta a rovescio, sia fatta vedere dalla parte di fuori, la destra dalla parte di dentro, il conosce il professore dell’arte; perchè, dove la destra ha il pollice dalla parte di sopra il muscolo o monte del pollice eminente su la palma, la quale chiaramente si vede incavata, le piegature degli articoli inclinate all’indietro; la mano sinistra ha il pollice dalla parte di sotto, che non ha muscolo o monte, ma sta appiccato al carpo della mano in veduta dalla parte di fuori; e questa parte di fuori non è incavata, ma gonfia; nè si vedono le piegature dele dita, ma le nocca.’ The painting is not mentioned by Bocchi in the original edition of Le bellezze. 75 One explanation for the difference of opinion between the two writers is that while Baldinucci sought to defend Vasari, as well as to promote earlier artists, Cinelli, in his attempt to update Bocchi’s guidebook, was more critical attitude towards earlier artists; see Chapter 6, pp. 143-5 above. 76 See A. Gambuti, ‘La quarta edizione delle Vite’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista, pp. 83-91, at p. 86. 77 Seven out of the nine notes to Giotto’s biography deal with such matters; see Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, p. 42, n. 2, and n. 3; p. 43, n. 1; p. 44, n. 1; p. 47, n. 1; p. 48, n. 1, n. 2 and n. 3; p. 59, n. 1. 78 Ibid., p. 237, n. 1: ‘L’un danno non abbastanza deplorabile, che quasi tutte le pitture di Masaccio qui addietro numerate sieno perdute.’ 79 Ibid., p. 360, n. 3: ‘Questa pittura nel 1693 fu gettata a terra, come narra il Baldinucci Dec. 3. part 1 del sec 5 a c. 92 facendone gran lamenti, ma vani, perchè chi non intende e crede d’intendere il pregio delle belle opere, non cura questi lamenti, e tira avanti a guastare e demolire e far ritoccare.’

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‘the progress of art’.80 This statement reflects his awareness of the importance of prints as a

means of documenting and recovering lost works, as well as his understanding of the way

painting had developed over the centuries.81 Approximately 400 of his notes concern prints,

which were based on his access to a vast amount of visual material: he was librarian of the

Corsini library in Rome and assembled the Corsini collection of 300 volumes of prints.82 As

Ingrid R. Vermeulen has pointed out,83 Bottari’s unfulfilled project was to illustrate the

artistic past and the progress of the arts through prints representing at least one work after

every artist from Cimabue to Raphael.84 That he chose Raphael as the last artist whose

works he intended to illustrate is particularly significant: he wanted to illustrate artistic

advances from the earliest attempts to the perfection obtained by Raphael. If this project

had been carried forward, it would have added a new dimension to Vasari’s Lives, merging

two traditions, the textual and the visual, which dealt with the history and progress of art.85

Bottari often writes about the Settecento as a period of artistic regression,

describing the works produced at that time as ‘monstrous’.86 His reasons for taking this

view, however, were not the same as Zanetti’s for Venice.87 The cause of the decline,

according to Bottari, was not a lack of talented artists, but rather that they practised an

incorrect method of studying, which consisted in copying the drawings and paintings of

their masters and which, he believed, did not allow artists to make any innovations or

80 Bottari also refers to works by Domenico Ghirlandaio and to those by Simone Martini in Santa Maria Novella; see ibid., p. 433, n. 1: ‘È propriamente un danno, che tutte queste storie non sieno state intagliate, sì per vedere il progresso di quest’arte’, and p. 102, n. 2: ‘Sarebbe stato desirabile, che fossero state intagliate in rame diligentemente queste, ed altre pitture secolo per secolo delle più celebri, e meglio conservate, perchè si vedesse il progresso, che fece la pittura.’ As Frangenberg argues, Bottari’s concern with printed reproductions of works of art was in line with other eighteenth-century enterprises, including his own work for Cardinal Neri Corsini; see Frangenberg, ‘The Limits of a Genre’, p. 297. 81 See Gambuti, ‘La quarta edizione’, p. 86. 82 For more information about the print collection of the Corsini family, see G. Mariani and E. Antetomaso, eds, La collezione del principe: da Leonardo a Goya: disegni e stampe della raccolta Corsini, Rome 2004. 83 I. R. Vermeulen, Picturing Art History: The Rise of the Illustrated History of Art in the Eighteenth Century, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 19-91 (‘Unfulfilled Projects to Illustrate Vasari. Bottari, Corsini’s Print Collection and the Rise of Art-Historical Illustration’), at p. 20. She suggests that Bottari could have consulted Corsini’s collection of prints in order to pursue his project. 84 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, I, p. 182, n. 1: ‘Sicchè sarebbe un’opera utilissima, e immortale chi facesse intagliare d’ogni pittore una figura, o un’istoria delle più conservate, e più notabili, de’quali il Vasari qui scrive la vita, o fa particolar menzione, cominciando da Cimabue. Non dico di tutti, ma di quelli, che andarono megliorando l’arte fino a Raffaello.’ 85 Vermeulen gives a number of examples of the ‘visualisation of artistic progress’ in Italian, French and English collections of prints; see Vermeluen, Picturing Art History, pp. 22-7. 86 Bottari, Dialoghi sopra le tre arti del disegno (Lucca 1754), Parma 1845, p. 51: ‘tante opere mostruose’; see also Gambuti, ‘La quarta edizione’, p. 91. Bottari also discusses the theme of artistic decline in his preface to Borghini’s Il Riposo. 87 See Chapter 4, pp. 78-9 above.

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stylistic progress.88 This idea, originally articulated by Vasari,89 was embraced and expanded

by Bottari.

Bottari presented Vasari’s work in a new light. His antiquarian approach led him,

like Vasari, to discuss the origins of Florentine art; and, in an attempt to recuperate the art

of the past, he touched on issues such as the conservation and restoration of early works of

art, raising awareness of the importance both of their preservation and their reproduction

in prints. He consolidated and updated the information through bibliographical references

and well-documented notes. In compiling his careful and knowledgeable descriptions of the

condition of the works of art discussed by Vasari, Bottari had help, he tells us, from the

Florentine painter Ignazio Hugford, who offered him notes about Florentine artists.90

Tommaso Gentili’s Edition (1767-1772)

Another new and updated edition of Vasari’s Lives was published in Livorno from 1767 to

1772 in seven volumes (fig. 79). The editor was a Florentine painter, Tommaso Gentili

(1704-1784),91 whose aim was to provide a carefully revised and corrected text along with

portraits of good quality.92 He was aided in this enterprise by the Aretine scholar, Giovanni

Francesco de’ Giudici (1711-1769), who provided information, particularly on artists and

88 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, III, p. 318, n. 1: ‘la cagione, perché la pittura e la scultura sieno al presente in tanta decandenza. Non è la cagione come credono alcuni, la mancanza de’ Mecenati...né la mancanza dei talenti...né altra causa simile; ma il modo d’insegnare de’ moderni, i quali fanno studiare i loro scolari sui disegni, e le opere proprie, cioè se gli fanno andar dietro; e però non passano mai loro avanti’; see also Gambuti, ‘La quarta edizione’, p. 89, n. 23. 89 See the life of Mino da Fiesole, in Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 422: ‘Quando gli artefici nostri non cercano altro nelle opere ch’è fanno che imitare la maniera del loro maestro o d’altro eccellente...non possono arrivare con questo solo a la perfezzione dell’arte, avvengachè manifestissimamente si vede che rare volte si passi a chi si camina dietro.’ 90 Vasari/Bottari, Le vite, III, pp. IX-X (‘Proemio dell’editore’): ‘Varie cose circa l’opere de’ nostri artefici Fiorentini, che non mi sovvenivano per essere da più trenta anni, che manco da Firenze, me le ha suggerite il signor Ignazio Hugford, accreditato pittore di quella città, nella quale è acclamato per uno de’ primi nella sua professione.’ 91 I have not been able to find any information about Gentili’s life or activity as a painter. He signs the introduction to his edition of Vasari’s Lives as ‘Pittore e Maestro di disegno delle Nobili Guardie Marine di S.A.R’ and ‘curatore dell’edizione’; see Giovanni Francesco de’ Giudici, Estratto delle vite de’ pittori di Giorgio Vasari per ciò che concerne Arezzo, ed. M. Melani, Florence 2005, pp. 9-20, (‘Giovanni Francesco de’ Giudici), at p. 19, esp. n. 43. 92 Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, I.1, p. VII: ‘Debbo inoltre avvertire che questa edizione è stata da me riveduta con tutta l’attenzione ed esattezza possibile, ed è corredata di Ritratti ben’intagliati.’ The portraits were etched by Tommaso Piroli, who also engraved d’Agincourt’s Histoire de l’art; see Vermeulen, ‘From Print Collecting into Art-Historical Illustration’, in Picturing Art History, pp. 59-90, at p. 59.

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monuments from Arezzo.93 De’ Giudici was brought up in a Jesuit convent under the

guidance of the Latinist friar Girolamo Lagomarsini.94 From 1747, he was in charge of the

archive of the Cathedral of Arezzo, recording all the documents and ordering them

chronologically.95 He also frequented the literary circle of the Accademia dei Forzati in

Arezzo, of which he became a member before 1750, and was acquainted with literati who

were in contact with Giovanni Bottari and Lodovico Muratori.96 De’ Giudici’s publications

include letters and annotated editions, for instance, of Giovanni Rondinelli’s Relazione sopra

lo stato antico e moderno della città di Arezzo l’anno MDLXXXIII and of Vasari’s Ragionamenti.97

He left two unpublished manuscripts: Memorie della città di Arezzo and Alcune memorie della

città di Arezzo. Given his knowledge of the history of Arezzo and his previous editorial

experience, especially on Vasari, de’ Giudici was an obvious choice to collaborate with

Gentili on his new edition of Vasari’s Lives.98

The first part of volume I includes biographies from Cimabue to Andrea Tafi. The

new material in this volume is not as extensive as in Bottari’s. For instance, there is only

one addition to the life of Cimabue, in which Gentili informs us that an altarpiece depicting

the Virgin and Child in San Pancrazio had been moved from the choir into the monastery

after its restoration.99 The few notes which Gentili added to the subsequent biographies

mostly contain historical information. So, for example, in the life of Arnolfo di Cambio, he

inserted notes on the history of the Palazzo del Comune, the campanile and the main

cathedral in Arezzo;100 and in two notes in the lives of Niccolà and Giovanni Pisano, he

93 Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, I.1, p. VII: ‘Ell’è finalmente arricchita di più e varie note comunicate dal Sig. Cav. Gio. Francesco de Giudici d’Arezzo, soggetto molto erudito e benemerito della sua Patria’; see also Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 334. 94 See Melani, Estratto delle vite, pp. 9-20 (‘Giovanni Francesco de’ Giudici’), at p. 12. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid., p. 14. 97 Vasari, Ragionamenti sopra le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel Palazzo delle loro altezze serenissime etc. insieme con la invenzione della pittura da lui cominciata nella cupola etc., second edition, Arezzo 1762. 98 Schlosser suggested that the Florentine painter and collector Ignazio Hugford (1703-1778) also contributed to Gentili’s edition: Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 334; however, he did not substantiate this claim, and Hugford’s name does not crop up in the edition. Margherita Melani drew attention to Hugford’s role as a painter, collector and merchant, as well as to his contributions on Florentine painters to Bottari’s edition of Vasari’s Lives: Melani, Estratto delle vite, p. 20, and esp. n. 48. Nevertheless, since Gentili took over Bottari’s preface and notes, which he always distinguished from his own (fig. 80), Hugford presumably had some indirect input into Gentili’s edition. 99 Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, I.1, p. 236, n.1: ‘Ancora per la Chiesa de’ Vallombrosiani di S. Pancrazio fece una tavola rappresentante Nostra Signora col Bambino in collo...servita anticamente per la Tavola dell’altar maggiore: Questo quadro dopo la moderna restraurazione di detta Chiesa, fu rimosso dal Coro, e collocata dentro nel Monastero.’ 100 Ibid., p. 246, n. 2; p. 249, n. 3 and p. 253, n. 2.

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provided descriptions of the main altar in the cathedral of Arezzo.101 Gentili’s notes also

contain quotations and inscriptions taken from works such as Lodovico Muratori’s Rerum

Italicarum scriptores102 and Giovanni Rondinelli’s Note alla descrizione d’Arezzo.103 As Margherita

Melani has shown, the notes in the first volume concerning the history of monuments in

Arezzo were predominantly based on the two unpublished manuscripts by de’ Giudici.104

She has also shown that de’ Giudici sent his comments to Gentili between 1765 and 1768

and that they did not refer to artists after Luca Signorelli,105 which suggests that Gentili

himself added the notes to later biographies. While de’ Giudici’s notes mainly record

inscriptions and contain historical information about buildings and monuments, those by

Gentili are more oriented towards the artists and their works.

The second part of volume I continues with biographies from Gaddo Gaddi to

Lorenzo di Bicci; and here again the notes concerning Arezzo, based on information from

de’ Giudici, provide instructive historical information.106 There are also notes referring to

works of art which are no longer extant,107 or have been replaced by modern ones;108 Even

though his notes are not as abundant as Bottari’s,109 Gentili’s additions are an important

attempt to make readers aware of lost works from the past. The recording of dates and

inscriptions was part of this process of recovery.

On rare occasions in these volumes, Gentili comments in his notes on the artistic

quality of paintings, but only with regard to those by late Quattrocento and early

Cinquecento painters.110 For instance, he describes Filippo Lippi’s paintings as beautiful and

101 Ibid., p. 269, n. 2 and p. 273, n. 2. 102 Lodovico Muratori, Rerum Italicarum scriptores, V, Milan 1724. 103 Giovanni Rondinelli, Relazione sopra lo stato antico e moderno della città di Arezzo, 8 vols, Arezzo 1755. 104 Melani, Estrato delle vite, pp. 9-20, at p. 19. 105 Ibid., p. 19. 106 See, e.g., the notes on Aretine churches in the lives of Margaritone and Giotto: Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, I.2, p. 294, n. 2; p. 297, n. 4; p. 307, n. 2; p. 321, n. 2. 107 See the notes to the life of Spinello Aretino: ibid., I.2, p. 485, n. 2, p. 490, n. 1, and p. 494, n. 2. 108 E.g., Simone Martini’s frescoes in the Palazzo della Signoria in Siena: ibid., I.2, p. 406, n. 1: ‘Le pitture di questo Capitolo non esistono, essendo stato modernato.’ Another example is Taddeo Gaddi’s stories of the life of St Sebastian in San Agostino in Arezzo; ibid., I.2, p. 425, n. 1: ‘Queste opere egregie in S. Agostino in Arezzo furono già ricoperte di bianco.’ 109 E.g., in the biographies of Lorenzo Monaco, Taddeo Bartoli and Lorenzo di Bicci, Gentili made no updates at all; ibid., I.2, pp. 509-25. 110 These praises are also found in his notes to volume III: see, e.g., life of Fra Bartolomeo in Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, III, pp. 107-9, n. 2: ‘Questo veramente bellissimo quadro è ora passato nella galleria dell’Eminentissimo Sig. Card. Corsini, dove e una gran raccolta di superbissime pitture. Rappresenta una Madonna ginocchioni, che tiene il bambino Gesu, che accarezza S. Giovannino, ed evvi s. Giuseppe appoggiato in atto di osservare le carezze, che si fanno questi due Santi Fanciulli. È stupendo il profilo della ss. Vergine, e il suo panneggiamento nobile, e amplo, e che termina con una naturalezza indicibile. Un velo,

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well preserved;111 and he says that Carpaccio’s stories of St Ursula are ‘so beautiful that they

seemed to be made by Giorgione’.112 Such annotations are, however, far outweighed by the

majority of notes, which treat works of art from a historical point of view.

Guglielmo della Valle’s Edition (1791-1794)

At the beginning of his studies on Sienese art, Lettere senesi,113 the Franciscan friar Guglielmo

della Valle (1745-1805) announced his intentions to produce a new edition of Vasari’s Lives.

Della Valle was brought up in an ecclesiastical environment and held important offices in

Rome, including that of superior priest in the church of Santi Apostoli in Rome.114 During

his travels through various cities in Italy, he became acquainted with other writers on art

such as Alessandro da Morona and Luigi Lanzi,115 whose works he drew on for his own

research. Although he did not claim to be able to offer a better alternative, della Valle

nevertheless regarded a new and improved edition as necessary.116 He was critical of the

Florentines Baldinucci and Bottari for their campanilismo,117 as well as for distorting the

facts;118 but della Valle also held strong views about other writers: ‘Leonardo is profound,

Lomazzo enlightens, Borghini sends readers to sleep, Bellori is interesting and Zanetti is

convincing.’119 He may have found Borghini unsatisfactory because he simply rehearsed, in

briefer form, what Vasari had said without necessarily arguing against it, while the authors

about whom he is more positive were polemical, challenging and disagreeing with Vasari’s

che copre la testa e le spalle, e d’una delicatezza, e trasparenza tale, che non pare, che l’arte possa arrivare a tanto.’ 111 Vasari/Gentili, Le vite, II.2, p. 488, n.1: ‘Questa tavola bellissima e benissimo conservata...’ 112 Ibid., p. 549, n. 1: ‘tanto belli che paiono di Giorgione’. 113 Guglielmo della Valle, Lettere senesi sopra le belle arti, 3 vols, Venice 1782-1786, containing notes, letters and biographies of Sienese artists from Duccio to Bernardino Mei. 114 G. Previtali, ‘Guglielmo della Valle’, Paragone, 1956, pp. 3-12, at p. 3. 115 Ibid. 116 Della Valle, Lettere senesi, II, p. 23: ‘non imprenda io a farne una edizione migliore’. 117 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, pp. I-LXII (‘Prefazione dell’edizione sanese’), at p. XIX: ‘Il Baldinucci patisce del male di soverchio filopatrismo’. 118

Della Valle, Lettere senesi, II, p. 23: ‘Baldinucci, Bottari e gli altri che scrissero sopra Vasari non fecero, che maggiormente imbrogliare le cose’. 119 Ibid.: ‘Leonardo e profondo, Lomazzo erudisce, Borghini addormenta, Bellori interessa, e Zanetti convince.’ He refers to Leonardo da Vinci, Trattato della pittura, Paris 1651; Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Idea del tempio della pittura, Bologna 1600; Raffaello Borghini, Il riposo, Florence 1584; Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, Rome 1672; and Zanetti, Descrizione or Della pittura.

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views on the Florentine origins of Italian painting.120 Della Valle, too, belonged to this

category of polemical writers and, as we shall see, his edition of Vasari’s Lives provides a

good illustration of this phenomenon.

Della Valle’s edition was published from 1791 to 1794 in eleven volumes (fig. 81).

Taking the 1568 edition as his starting-point, della Valle, in a lengthy preface, outlines

various improvements he has made. In the first instance, unlike Vasari, he has decided to

number each volume individually.121 Furthermore, while maintaining the initial order of the

biographies, he has paid tribute to Vasari by placing his biography before all the other

lives;122 but instead of writing a laudatio, della Valle decided to begin Vasari’s biograpy with a

specially commissioned print by Giovanni Battista Leonetti after a design by Giuseppe

Cades, representing a bust of him, placed on a plinth with a putto on its right side (fig.

82).123 Della Valle also replaced the initial portraits of the artists with a new set of prints,

which in his view were ‘better and fresher’.124 These new portraits have a more stylized

appearance than the originals and are no longer inscribed within an oval, but surrounded by

decorative ribbons and grotesques and surmounted by fantastic creatures (figs 83-6).

Della Valle then discusses previous editions of Vasari’s Lives, pointing out errors

committed by their editors.125 He, for instance, says that Bottari was wrong to claim that the

publisher’s name does not appear on the original edition and corrects other writers who

attributed the 1550 edition to Giunti and the 1568 edition to Torrentino or who assigned

the prints to the wrong printmaker.126 These are not very substantial criticisms and suggest

that della Valle was looking for faults to justify his own efforts.

120 E.g., Bellori, Le vite, ed. Borea, p. 6, took a different position from Vasari and his followers: ‘e quelli stessi che riprendono Giorgio Vasari per avere accumulato e con eccesive lodi inalzato li Fiorentini e Toscani, cadono anch’essi nell’errore’, in In Venice, too, writers such as Boschini and especially Zanetti adopted a critical attitude towards some of their predecessors: see Chapters 3 and 4 above. 121 Ibid., p. III: ‘Noi numereremo ogni volume da per se.’ 122 Ibid., p. IV: ‘Lascieremo al luogo loro le vite, toltane quella del Vasari a cui se il modesto Autore diede l’ultimo luogo, noi interpretando i voti del pubblico e della fama, gli assegneremo il primo, e senza ripetere le stesse cosa terra il luogo di elogio dell’Autore, di cui presentiamo il bel ritratto nel frontespizio.’ Vasari’s biography is at pp. 1-61. 123 Ibid., p. IV: ‘e senza ripetere le stesse cose terrà il luogo di elogio dell’Autore, di cui presentiamo il bel ritratto nel frontespizio’. 124 Ibid, p. VIII: ‘li daremo anche migliori de’ precedenti e più freschi’. 125 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I (‘Prefazione dell’edizione sanese’), pp. I-LXII. 126 Ibid., p. I: ‘Errò in consequenza Mgr Bottari nel proemio alla sua edizione scrivendo che “il Vasari diede da prima alla luce queste sue vite in due tomi in Firenze l’anno 1550 senza nome di stampatore”. E in più grande errore cade chi in una nota al museo Fiorentino de’ Ritratti de’ pittori (Firenze 1752, tom I) asserisce che le vite furono stampate in tre volumi per i Giunti nel 1568, ristampate poi con aggiunta dal Torrentino in due volumi in 4 senza i ritratti. Un altro errore è da correggersi nel catalogo della Slusiana (Rom. 1690, p. 644), in

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Della Valla also comments on Filippo Baldinucci’s Notizie, as well as the

annotations to it by Domenico Maria Manni and Pietro Giovanni Piacenza.127 One of the

criticisms which he levels against Baldinucci is that he ‘suffered from excessive

patriotism’.128 Elsewhere he claims that Bottari shared a similar prejudice; and he suggests

that, rather than indulging his Florentine campanilismo, he should have acknowledged the

importance of other schools of painting from Tuscany and elsewhere in Italy.129 Della Valle

also objects to the high price of 15 scudi for Bottari’s edition,130 despite the good quality of

the paper and printing. Against Vasari’s view of the pre-eminence of Florentine art

(supported by Borghini, Baldinucci, Marco Lastri131 and Bottari), della Valle presents Pisa

and Siena as alternative centres, which also produced artists who managed to ‘revive’

painting; and he supports this opinion by referring to Ranieri Tempesti’s Discorso accademico

sull’istoria letteraria pisana and Alessandro da Morrona’s Pisa illustrata, both published in

1787.132 According to della Valle, the Pisan school was a model for the Sienese one, which

in turn shaped the style of Florentine painters.133

At the end of his preface, della Valle presents two accounts: one of the Sienese and

Pisan schools of painting and the other of the Florentine school. In the first, he lists five

reasons why he decided to treat Pisa, Siena and Florence separately: their different types of

government, their rivalry, their artistic differences, the distinctive contributions of Sienese

cui questa prima edizione del Vasari dicesi fatta nel 1556. E finalmente da notarsi lo sbaglio del Sig Tommaso Temanza a Mgr Bottari (Lett Pitt tom 4, p. 296), scrivendo che i ritratti esistenti in detta edizione sono stati disegnati la maggior parte da Van Calcker; sbaglio dal medesimo sig Temanza avvertito poi e coretto [ivi p. 302]. Questi avvertimenti preventivamente fatti dal Ch. Sig. Ab. Comolli [Bibliogr. Vol. 2 p. 5 e 6] servirono a guardare dall’inganno coloro, che delle stampe rare si pregiano, con non lieve dispendio ornandone le loro

biblioteche.’ 127 Filippo Baldinucci, Cominciamento, e progresso dell’arte dell’intagliare in rame, colle vite di molti de’ più eccellenti maestri della stessa professione, ed. Domenico Maria Manni, second edition, 4 vols, Florence 1767-1774, and his Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in quà , ed. Pietro Giovanni Piacenza, third edition, 4 vols, Turin 1768-1820. 128 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. XIX: ‘Il Baldinucci patisce del male di soverchio filopatrismo.’ 129 Ibid., p. XXIV: ‘avvertendo che l’amore della patria non e buona scusa per uno scrittore, che imprendendo a scrivere le vite degli antichi di ogni Nazione, taccia non solo molte di quelli dell’altre città che pure meriterebbero lode’. 130 Ibid.: ‘Buon pro faccia a lui a chi puo spendere quindici scudi a caso per fare acquisto della sua edizione.’ 131 Marco Lastri, L’Etruria pittrice ovvero Storia della pittura toscana, dedotta dai suoi monumenti che si esibiscono in stampa dal secolo X fino al presente, 2 vols, Florence 1791-1795. 132 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. XXXIV: ‘é da vedersi il discorso accademico sull’istoria letteraria Pisana del Ch. Sig Ab. Tempesti, Pisa, 1787…e finalmente la Pisa Illustrata dal Ch. sig. Alessandro da Morrona, Pisa, 1787, tom 1’; see Ranieri Tempesti, Discorso Accademico sull’istoria letteraria pisana, Pisa 1787, and Alessandro da Morrona, Pisa illustrata nelle arti del disegno (1787-1793), 3 vols, Livorno 1812. 133 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. XXXV: ‘Che poi la scuola Sanese derivi dalla Pisana...come è certo, che ne deriva la Fiorentina.’

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painting and, finally, its unique characteristics,134 in particular, its ‘invention and

expression’.135 In the second account, he states that the history of Florentine painting

should start with Giotto, as Cimabue’s contributions were negligible.136 One of his aims in

producing a new edition of the Lives was to reaffirm the view, advanced in his Lettere senesi,

that Florentine painters were dependent on their Pisan and Sienese counterparts.137 He thus

claims that, while neither Vasari nor Lastri was able to establish where both Giotto and

Cimabue were trained, both artists were, in fact, influenced by the Pisan painter Giunta,

citing a perceived parallel between Giotto and Giunta’s works in Assisi;138 and he also

names Nicola Pisano in connection with Giotto’s training as an architect.139 Della Valle

concludes his discussion by summarizing his theory that painting was first revived in Pisa,

then in Siena and, finally, in Florence.140

Of all the editors of Vasari examined so far seen, della Valla was the most

dismissive of his predecessors and the most eager to promote his own views on art, which

were clearly inclined towards the promotion of the Pisan and Sienese schools. Challenging

and opposing the assumptions of Florentine writers who followed in Vasari’s footsteps, he

gave pre-eminence to painters from Pisa and Siena over artists from Florence.141 Coming

134 Ibid., pp. LIV-LVI. 135 Ibid., p. LVI: ‘I caratteri distintivi della scuola Sanese sono l’invenzione e l’espressione.’ 136 Della Valle’s underestimation of Cimabue is also apparent in his notes to the artist’s life; see ibid., pp. 233-46. One of the only contributions to painting of Cimabue which della Valle was prepared to admit was that he had discovered Giotto; see p. LVII: ‘Si potrebbe senza farle il menomo torto, incominciare da Giotto; poichè Cimabue non le fece nè bene nè male. Però se vogliamo col Vasari incominciarla da Cimabue, non mi oppongo: merita considerazione l’aver egli scoperto in Giotto pastorello un’artefice formato dalla natura, e dalla patria capanna guidandolo a Firenze, indirizzatolo a coltivare le arti del disegno.’ 137 He also argued in favour of this theory in two of his other works (also published in 1787); see G. Ercoli, ‘L’edizione delle Vite di Guglielmo della Valle’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista, pp. 93-100, at 99; see also della Valle, Lettere senesi, II (‘Al Chiarissimo Signore Abbate Lanzi. Confronto dell’arte sanese con la fiorentina’), pp. 265-79, at p. 267: ‘Poichè prima di Giotto non troviamo il nome di alcuno Scultore, o Pittore Fiorentino sotto alle sue opere; e quello di pochi artefici sotto l’altre, che si fecer poi; mentre incominciando dal Secolo XIII, insino al XVI, abbiamo nella Scuola Sanese una serie di Maestri col nome loro segnato chiaramente sotto l’opere insieme all’anno, in cui esse furono fatte. La qual cosa, quanto per una parte ci lascia nell’incertezza risguardo all’origine della Scuola Fiorentina, e all’opere di Cimabue, altrettanto ci guida per mano a pronunziare con sucurezza della Sanese.’ 138 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. LVII: ‘Anche nella prima opera di Giotto vedo la maniera e il fare di Giunta

Pisano, massimamente in Assisi.’ 139 Ibid., p. LVIII: ‘e finalmente nè il Vasari nè Lastri ci sapranno indicare da chi Giotto abbia appreso la scultura e l’architettura, ma dirò ben io, che egli fu anche in Orvieto, dove Arnolfo e Lapo seguitarono il loro maestro Niccolò da Pisa, facendovi sotto la sua direzione varie opere’; see Ercoli, ‘L’edizione delle Vite’, p. 99. 140 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. LXII: ‘Sarà sempre vero che il primo vanto nella Storia dell’arte risorgente in Toscana si deve ai Pisani, il secondo ai Sanesi e l’ultimo ai Fiorentini.’ 141 Della Valle, Lettere senesi, II, p. 266: ‘per quanto cari vi siano Vasari, e Leon Battista, Cimabue e Giotto, so

che pià cara tenete la verità, e che senza aspettare, che venga di là dai monti il di lei lume, avete il coraggio di sacrificarle i pregiudizi, e gli errori’.

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from a non-Tuscan writer,142 who was also a critic of campanilismo, this was an important

development in the historiography of Florentine art.

After the biography of Vasari, della Valle reprinted Bottari’s preface, with his own

annotations,143 which are marked with an asterisk. In one of his first notes to Bottari’s

preface, he says that some emendations by earlier editors had no basis or were incomplete

and that therefore his own aim was to provide a more interesting edition, which would shed

light on the history of art and contribute to the field of art criticism.144 Another

shortcoming of Bottari’s edition was that so many of his notes were unclear.145

Della Valle’s critical attitude towards Vasari’s views on early Florentine painting is

apparent in his notes on the lives of individual artists. In the first volume, which contains

biographies from Cimabue to Margaritone, he begins with a comment which reflects his

preference for Tuscan painters from Pisa and Siena, rather than Florence, stating that

artistic progress in Italy would not have taken place ‘even after Cimabue’s day, if there had

not been better painters than him in Pisa, in Siena and elsewhere at that time’.146 He then

argues against Vasari’s view that, in comparison to earlier artists, Cimabue brought painting

to a state of perfection.147 Della Valla instead characterizes Cimabue’s style as rather clumsy,

unlike that of other thirteenth-century painters, including ‘Giunta, Guido da Siena and

Giacomo da Torrita’,148 and reformulates his argument that good Italian painters existed

even before Cimabue, whom he refers to sarcastically as ‘the Archimandrite of the

Florentine school’.149 He does, however, admit that in his frescoes in San Francesco in

142 On della Valle’s Piedmontese origins, see Previtali, ‘Guglielmo della Valle’, p. 3. 143 All the annotations from the editions of Bottari and Gentili are taken over by della Valle, who always indicates the source of each note. 144 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. 64, n. (*): ‘poichè molte notizie del Vasari già sono state da vari Scrittori dimostrate insussistenti, e altre hanno bisogno di essere un pò meglio connesse e vagliate. In ciò principalmente consisterà il pregio di quest’edizione, che speriamo più interessante delle antecedenti, per i nuovi lumi agggiunti alla Storia dell’arte, dalle più accurate ricerche fattesi negli Archivi, e per il moderno uso della critica, più purgata di quello fosse in questa parte ai tempi del Vasari.’ 145 Ibid., p. 66, n. (*): ‘tante note di cose non abbastanza chiare’. 146 Ibid., p 233, n.(*): ‘L’Italia sarebbe stata veramente misera anche dopo che Cimabue era imbarbogito, se non avesse a que’tempi avuto in Pisa, in Siena e in altre parti de’ pittori migliori di esso.’ 147 See ibid., p. 235 : ‘E perchè, sebbene imitò que’ Greci, aggiunse molta perfezione all’arte’, and della Valle’s note: p. 235, n. (**): ‘questa molta perfezione aggiunta da Cimabue all’arte, per quanta notomia abbia fatta delle sue pitture, non l’ho veduta mai’. 148 Ibid., p. 235, n. (**): ‘ho veduto bensì in essa più di maniera goffa che non ne vedessi in quella di Giunta pisano, di Guido da Siena, di Fra Giacomo da Torrita, ed altri del secolo XIII’. 149 Ibid., p. 238, n. (*): ‘In Italia, prima di Cimabue non solamente si dipingeva; ma si dipingeva meglio di questo archimandrita della Scuola Fiorentina.’

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Assisi Cimabue surpasses Giunta.150 His annotations to the life of Cimabue are particularly

revealing of his opposition to Vasari’s Florentine campanilismo and his rejection of the idea

that the ‘renaissance’ of Tuscan painting was due exclusively to Cimabue and his Florentine

followers.

Della Valle also used his annotations for other purposes. In the biography of

Arnolfo di Cambio,151 for instance, he included a number of works which Vasari had

omitted, but which he considered to be beautiful and worthy of mention such as the tomb

of Cardinal de Braye in San Domenico in Orvieto (fig. 87) and the ciborium in San Paolo

fuori le Mura (fig. 88), which he praises for the way in which the attitudes of the figures are

rendered.152

Della Valle also refers to works of art which had been reproduced separately or as

prints in albums. On such album was the Stampe del Duomo di Orvieto, which was published

under his own direction and intended to accompany his Storia del Duomo di Orvieto.153

Containing 38 etched and engraved plates by different hands,154 it contained exterior and

interior views of the cathedral, including its decoration. In his notes, della Valle cites the

reproductions of some prints after Niccolà Pisano’s bas-relief of the Resurrection and Luca

Signorelli’s frescoes in the Chapel of San Brizio.155 The circulation of illustrated writings on

Trecento and early Quattrocento works was intended to exert an impact on readers and

collectors, encouraging them to appreciate the art of this period: it was the practical

counterpart to his theoretical programme. As Giuliano Ercoli has argued,156 one of della

Valle’s achievements in the first volume of his edition of Vasari was to challenge the

general opinion that painters before Giotto were to be recorded only for documentary

150 Ibid., p. 239, n. (*): ‘in queste pitture Cimabue a mio parere superò Giunta Pisano.’ 151 Ibid., pp. 247-67. 152 Ibid., p. 266, n. (*): ‘Tralle opere belle e degne di memoria che fece Arnolfo, una fu il deposito del Cardinal de Braye nella chiesa di S. Domenico di Orvieto... L’altra fu la Tribuna di marmo, che fece per la Confessione di S. Paolo nella Basilica di questo Apostolo fuor delle mura di Roma, in cui ci sono delle figure bennissimo atteggiate.’ 153 See della Valle, Stampe del Duomo di Orvieto, Rome 1791, and his Storia del Duomo di Orvieto, Rome 1791. 154 The prints were made by Domenico Pronti (active 1780), Girolamo Frezza (1671-after 1748), Giovanni Battista Leonetti (d. 1830), Giuseppe Pozzi (1732-1811), Giovanni Ottaviani (1735-1808), Pietro Leone Bombelli (1737-1809), Luigi Cunego (1727-1803), Alessandro Mochetti (active 1801-1828), Francesco Morelli (c. 1768-1830) and Hubert Vincent (active 1680-1730). 155 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, I, p. 266: ‘la storia della risurrezione de’ Morti che fece in bassorilievo nella facciata del Duomo di Orvieto di cui parla con lode il Vasari nella vita di Niccola da Pisa e di cui daremo la stampa in rame pubblicando la storia di detto Duomo’, and pp. 269-70, n. (*): ‘nelle pareti della gran Cappella della B. V. detta di S Brizio in Orvieto; come si vedrà nei rami che stanno per uscire alla luce con la storia del Duomo di detta città’. 156 Ercoli, ‘L’edizione delle Vite’, p. 93.

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purposes. Instead, he suggested that their works deserved to be appreciated for their artistic

qualities. This was an important stage in the history of the reception of early Renaissance

art.

The second volume starts with a letter by Giovanni Battista Adriani, which served

as the preface and which offers an account of the art of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman

antiquity.157 For the subsequent volumes of his edition, della Valle supplied prefaces of his

own, which, like Adriani’s letter, dealt with general artistic topics.

Other aspects of the second volume, which starts with the life of Giotto, are also of

interest. Della Valle, for example, inserted a note on the frescoes in the Baroncelli Chapel in

Santa Croce, stating that he had reflected on these paintings numerous times and

considered them to be the best of Giotto’s works. On the basis of a stylistic analysis of the

frescoes, he suggested that Simone Martini, Lucca di Tommè and the Lorenzetti brothers

all trained together with Giotto in the workshop of the Sienese painter Jacopo di Torrita.158

Such statements reveal della Valle’s determination to establish the Sienese origins of the

revival of painting, even if this sometimes entailed presenting the facts in a distorted

manner.159 His strong preference for Sienese art is also apparent in his belief that Simone

Martini surpassed Giotto in his rendering of figures and inventions.160 Finally, in a note to

the biography of Duccio, he divides Sienese painters into two categories: those who

followed the ‘modern and brilliant’ style of Jacopo da Torrita (e.g., Simone Martini, Lippo

Memmi and Luca di Tommè) and those who continued to adopt the ‘old style, called Greek

of the dark days’ which characterized the work of Guido da Siena (e.g., Ugolino da Siena,

Duccio and the Lorenzetti brothers).161 In order to promote Sienese art and, perhaps, in

157 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, II, pp. 3-71 (‘Lettera di M. Gio. Battsta di Messer Marcello Adriani a Messer Giorgio Vasari’). 158 Ibid., p. 78, n. (*): ‘dopo avera centinaja di volte meditato sopra le pitture di Giotto che in S. Croce di Firenze si conservano, e sono delle migliori di esso, ho dei motivi a opinare che Giotto insieme con Simone, Luca di Tommè e i Lorenzetti di Siena sia stato alla scuola di Fr. Jacopo da Torrita’. While della Valle’s claims were surprising and daring, since they broke with traditional views, they were nevertheless acknowledged by later critics; see Ercoli, ‘L’edizione delle Vite’, p. 100. 159 Previtali provided a list of 11 misattributions made by della Valle and claimed that these were the basis for his arguments against the preeminence of Florentine art; see Previtali, La fortuna dei primitivi, pp. 110-128 (‘Erudizione locale a Siena, Assisi, Pisa: Della Valle, Ranghiasci, Da Morrona’), at pp. 113-14. 160 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, II, p. 208, n. (*): ‘lo stile di Simone supera quello di Giotto nel fare grandioso delle figure e nella fecondità dell’invenzioni’. 161 Ibid., pp. 285-6, n. (*): ‘La scuola sanese fin dal primo secolo si divise l’arte in due modi notabilmente diferenti. Alcuni, come Simone, Lippo, Luca di Tomme, e altri si attennero a quel più moderno e più brilante di Fr. Giacomo da Torrita; altri poi, come Ugolino, Duccio, i Lorenzetti, ec. seguitarono quello di Guido da Siena, che conservava del vecchiume detto greco de’ bassi tempi.’ Despite stating in the life of Giotto that the

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imitation of Bottari’s project, della Valle put forward the idea of an illustrated history of

Sienese painting from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century in the form of prints. This

project, however, like Bottari’s, remained unfulfilled.162

The third volume begins with Vasari’s ‘Proemio’ to the second part, followed by the

biographies of Quattrocento artists. Della Valle adds only a few notes reflecting his

personal artistic views or analysing the style of art works to the lives in this volume. In a

note to the the biography of Jacopo della Quercia, for instance, he observes that while the

works of earlier sculptors such as Niccolò Pisano were appreciated for their ‘expression,

design and grace’ (fig. 89), they were, nevertheless lacking in the softness (morbidezza) which

characterized della Quercia’s sculptures (fig. 90).163 Della Valle also inserts a couple of

annotations about Masaccio’s paintings. In one, he recalls ‘a portrait of an old woman

spinning, whose natural expression left such a powerful impression on me that twelve years

after I saw it, it still seems present and visible to me’.164 Similarly, while commenting on the

frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, della Valle claims that Masaccio deserves to be called ‘the

first master of Italian painting’.165

Della Valle placed his account of the art of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Italians

at the beginning of the fourth volume,166 followed by the biographies. Referring to

Giovanni Bellini’s Virgin and Child in Ca’ Pesaro, which he describes as ‘charming’,167 he

Lorenzetti brothers were trained in the workshop of Torrita, here he assigns them to the school of Guido da Siena. 162 Ibid., pp. 286-7, n. (*): ‘Pertanto chiuderò questa nota, avvertendo che S.E. il sig. Principe D. Sigismondo Chigi fece incidere questa tavola, la quale sebbene sia sfuggita alle ricerche del Vasari... Sarebbe desirabile che il detto Signore continuasse sino al fine l’incisione dei capi d’opera della scuola Sanese, che durò più di cinque secoli’; see also Vermeulen, Picturing Art History, pp. 59-90, p. 79, and esp. n. 192. 163 Vasari/della Valle, Le vite, III, p. 18, n. (*): ‘Nelle sculture di Niccolò Pisano e degli altri maestri prima di Jacopo si vede espressione, disegno e grazia, che pare superiore a que’ tempi e all’opinione quasi universale e svantaggiosa di essi; quei marmi pero sono privi della morbidezza, che meritamente si lode nelle opere di Jacopo.’ 164 Ibid., p. 117, n. (*): ‘Fra queste e notabile una vecchia che fila e che mi fece tanta impressione con la sua naturale espressione, che dopo dodici anni dacchè la vidi, parmi ancora di averla presente e vederla.’ I have not been able to identify this work. 165 Ibid., p. 124, n. (*): ‘il primo gran maestro dell’arte italiana’. 166 Ibid., IV, pp. 5-20 (‘Ragionamento sullo stato ed eccellenza delle belle arti presso gli antichi greci, latini e italiani’), at p. 5, n. (*): ‘Si è creduto che opportunamente potesse tener luogo di prefazione a questo quarto tomo della presente edizione del Vasari.’ 167 Ibid., p. 108, n. (*): ‘vaga pittura’.

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states that ‘there are no other paintings which invite us to contemplate them more than

Venetian ones’, whether on account of their colouring or their life-like representations.168

The three eighteenth-century editions of Vasari’s Lives each have a different

character and develop the work in different ways. Bottari was concerned with the

conservation and restoration of works of art and stressed the importance of preserving

those from the early Renaissance and reproducing them as prints as a means of tracing the

progress of art. At the same time, his deep knowledge of artistic literature, evident from his

bibliographical notes, also helped to consolidate and enrich the understanding of readers.

Gentili, on the other hand, was more or an antiquarian, preoccupied with the historical

recovery of works of art and the context in which they were produced and displayed. His

main contribution was to include information about various artists and monuments from

Arezzo, which he obtained from his collaborator de’ Giudici. Finally, della Valle’s enterprise

differed from the other two in that he took the liberty of challenging the views of Vasari

and his followers. He used Vasari’s Lives as a starting-point for presenting his own ideas and

developing his theory about the orgins of Italian painting. He maintained that noteworthy

art was produced even before Cimabue and Giotto and emphasized the importance of

Sienese and Pisan ‘primitives’.

The one seventeenth- and three eighteenth-century editions of the Lives examined

in this chapter all brought new elements which enhanced their readers’ understanding of

artists and their works. Importantly, later editors reproduced all the notes from previous

editions, in order present a complete and updated view of the evolution of art over time, in

which different elements were highlighted. Another important aspect was the emphasis

which all the editors placed on the artists’ portraits, for which they commissioned new

prints. While faithful to the originals, the new prints added a new touch, in line with the

taste of the day. Campanilismo played a part in the editions of Vasari’s Lives published in the

second half of the eighteenth century, leading editors to present either Florentine painters

or those from other Tuscan schools as the key figures in the artistic revival which took

place from the Trecento to the early Cinquecento.

168 Ibid: ‘Io non trovo pitture che più delle veneziane invitino a contemplarle; ossia che si guardi il colorito,

che e tanto vicino al vero della natura, ossia che uno porti lo sguardo in quelle copiose assemblee di uomini illustri ritratti dal vivo felicissimamente.’

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Illustrating the Artistic Past in Eighteenth-Century Florence

Both Bottari and della Valle welcomed the idea of illustrating the artistic past by means of

reproductive prints; however, as we have seen, their plans were never realized. The writer

who actually embraced Bottari’s plan and executed the project was Marco Lastri.169 His

Etruria pittrice, published in two large volumes between 1791 and 1795, included 120 prints

after Tuscan works of art covering a period of eight centuries (from the tenth to the

eighteenth century). The elegant volume, published by Niccolò Pagni and Giuseppe Bardi,

came out in Italian with a parallel translation in French made by Barthélémi Renard.170 As

the publishers stated in their foreword,171 the translation was meant to make the book

available to a wider public, as well as to establish a link with the French tradition of art-

historical illustration.172 While Lastri did not refer to the previous examples of Italian

illustrated art books by Zanetti and Stefano Mulinari,173 he did mention Bottari’s ambitious

project and Girolamo Tiraboschi’s suggestion for a small-scale catalogue which would

include only reproductions after works of art dating from the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries.174 Tiraboschi believed that the illustrations would help to clarify the contradictory

169 For more information on Marco Lastri and other illustrated writings on art such as d’Agincourt’s Histoire discussed in connection with collecting in Tuscany and museum displays of paintings by the ‘primitives’, see C. de Benedictis, ‘‘‘Etruria Pittrice’’: All’origine del collezionismo di primitivi in Toscana’, in La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte, pp. 67-77. 170 See K. Krause, ‘Marco Lastri, L’Etruria pittrice ovvero Storia della pittura toscana’, in Bilderlust und Lesefrüchte: das illustrierte Kunstbuch von 1750 bis 1920, ed. K. Krause, K. Niehr and E. M. Hanebutt-Benz, Leipzig 2005, pp. 81-3, at p. 81 171 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, p. [vi]: ‘degli articoli in lingua Italiana, trasportati poi nella Francese dal Sig. Bart.

Renard, pubblico Maestro di detta lingua; il che abbiam pensato di fare per estenderne la cognizione presso i Forestieri.’ 172 See, e.g., Pierre Jean Marriette, Recueil d’estampes d’après les plus beaux tableaux et d’après les plus beaux desseins qui sont en France dans le cabinet du Roy, dans celuy de Monseigneur le Dux d’Orleans et dans d’autres cabinets. Divisè suivant les differentes écoles; avec un abbrégé de la Vie des peintres et une Description Historique de chaque Tableau, 2 vols, Paris 1729-1742; see also G. Bickendorf, ‘Zu Einer ‘‘Storia dell’Arte’’ I: Das Modell der ‘‘Storia’’ und die Kennerschaft’, in Die Historisierung der Italienischen Kurnstbetrachtung im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1998, pp. at p. 274-313, at pp. 289-95. 173 On Zanetti’s Varie pitture a fresco, see Chapter 4, n. 1 above. See also Stefano Mulinari, Istoria prattica dell’incominciamento, e progressi della Pittura, o sia Raccolta di cinquanta stampe estratte da ugual numero di disegni originali esistenti nella Real Galleria di Firenze, Florence 1778; and Vermeulen, Picturing Art History, pp. 83-4. 174 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, p. [iv]: ‘Il primo a proporlo, perquanto si sappia, fu Monsig. Bottari...Poscia il celebre Sig. Abate Cav. Tiraboschi torno ad insinuarlo nella sua Storia della Letteratura Italiana; limitandolo però solamente ad una semplice raccolta di stampe tratte da Pitture del Secolo XII e XIII.’

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discussions concerning the origins of Italian painting and to determine whether Cimabue

was the first artist to make a significant contribution to Florentine painting.175

The purpose of the Etruria pittrice, as indicated by the publishers who quoted from

Baldinucci’s preface to his Notizie,176 was to offer a better understanding of the progress of

the arts through a chronological selection of prints after miniatures, frescoes and paintings

in Tuscany.177 The selection was based on two criteria: the original works had to be

authentic and the artists selected had to be recognized as important by previous writers on

art.178 Each illustration was accompanied by an entry in which Lastri’s main focus was to

analyse the work and point out its distinguishing elements. He considered the biographical

information on the artists to be of secondary importance and insisted that his book

presented the history of painting and not that of painters.179 As Vermeulen has argued,180

Lastri’s views brought a significant change to the way in which the writings on art evolved

from this point. Even though Etruria pittrice incorporated and perpetuated the tradition of

artists’ biographies,181 its role decreased and was replaced by what stood at the centre of

Lastri’s book: the works of art. Lastri also had different views on the origins of Italian

painting from those of della Valle, Malvasia and Ridolfi,182 whose judgements were

175 Girolamo Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 9 vols, Modena 1787-1794, IV, p. 502: ‘Ma non potrebbono i Fiorentini rispondere che l’invidia accieca i loro avversari, e li conduce a riprendere Cimabue, solo perche fu fiorentino? A decidere giustamente una tal contesa, che forse non avra fine giammai, converrebbe che una società d’uomini intendenti delle bell’arti, e insieme imparziali, prendesse a ricercare diligentemente tutte le pitture che del XII e del XIII secolo abbiamo in Italia, quelle cioè delle quali e certo il tempo in cui furono fatte ed e conosciuto l’artefice; quindi a ritrarle con somma esattezza in rami e colorirli ancora, imitando, quanto e possibile, le stesse pitture. Una serie di quadri cosi formata, ci darebbe una giusta idea della pittura di que’ tempi, e ci farebbe conoscere qual fosse l’arte prima di Cimabue, qual fosse dopo, e se a lui possa convenir veramente l’onorevole nome di ristoratore della pittura. aspettiam dunque che si faccia questo confronto; e guardiamo frattanto fra’l caldo de’ contrari partiti.’ 176 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, p. [iv]: ‘Parve a me , egli scrive nella Prefazione, che questi cosi fatti disegni ordinati per la successione de’ tempi, fussero per avere un non so che della Storia; mentre senza lettura, ma con la sola vista si sarebbon potuti riconoscere non solo i progressi di quest’Arte; ma quello che e più, col testimonio indubitato della propria mano di ciascheduno degli Artefici, si sarebbe potuto venire in cognizione, per mezzo di chi ella avesse tal miglioramento ricevuto’; see also Baldinucci, Notizie, I, pp. [iii-iv] (‘L’autore a chi legge’). 177 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, p. [iv]: ‘La nostra intrapresa e diretta allo scopo medesimo.’ 178 Ibid., p. [v]: ‘Quanto alla scelta degli originali, abbiam preferito sempre quelli, i quali mostrano per evidenti contrassegni d’essere i più autentici, e che anno dalla parte loro l’autorità de più accreditati Scrittori.’ 179 Ibid.: ‘noi facciam l’istoria della Pittura, non già dei Pittori’. 180 Vermeulen, Picturing Art History, p. 84. 181 Ibid. The entries for each artist included short biographical accounts, as well as medallions with a portrait. 182 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, pp. [xxxviii-xxxxix]: ‘La questione adunque circa il primato in quest’arte, nell’aspetto in cui la porta il P. della Valle a favor dei Pisani, e dei Senesi; il Malvasia pei Bolognesi, ed il Cav. Ridolfi pei Veneziani; e affatto ozia ed inconcludente.’

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influenced by campanilismo. In Lastri’s opinion, the only way to establish with accuracy the

origins of painting was to identify the artist who first restored painting to the right path.183

Lastri’s clear views on artistic progress, which were influenced by Bottari, led him to

apply the latter’s principles when selecting works for reproduction. Lastri chose one work

for each artist (with the exception of Antonio Pollaiuolo for whom he chose two).184 The

first volume begins with illustrations of miniatures dating from the tenth and eleventh

centuries, which Lastri criticizes for their lack of proportion, attitude, shadows and

perspective,185 and it ends with a print after Santi di Tito.186 The second volume includes

prints after works by artists from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, starting from

Ventura Salimbeni and ending with Giuseppe Grisoni. The catalogue form of the Etruria

pittrice allowed Lastri to discuss each work individually and to express his own judgement,

occasionally offering the reader the possibility of comparing illustrations (e.g., Benozzo

Gozzoli’s Drunkness of Noah with Paolo Uccello’s painting of the same subject).187

In Lastri’s opinion, each of the painters had contributed to the progress of Tuscan

art. He recognized artistic improvements in Cimabue’s Madonna and Giotto’s Death of the

Virgin, both of which he praised, drawing on Vasari and Baldinucci.188 He also remarked on

Uccello’s rendering of perspective and his exceptionally well executed figure of the drunken

183 Ibid.: ‘Non si tratta già di chi vanti il Pittore più antico innanzi Cimabue; ma di chi fosse il primo tra tutti gli altri, il quale rimettesse la Pittura nel buon sentiero, le facesse fare una vera crise, o in altre parole, non di chi ne fosse l’inventore, ma il restauratore.’ 184 See Lastri, Etruria pittrice, plates XIV and XV. 185 Ibid., p. [xi]: ‘figure senza proporzione, senz’attitudine, e senz’ombre, e senza prospettiva’; see also Vermeulen, ‘From Print Collecting into Art-Historical Illustration’, in Picturing Art History, pp. 59-90, at p. 86. 186 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, ‘Catalogo de’ pittori di questo primo volume dal secolo X fino alla meta del secolo XVI’, pp. [vii-viii]. 187 Ibid., p. [lxxviii]: ‘una delle dette storie e l’ebrietà di Noe, la quale abbiamo preferita a tutte le altre dello

stesso Autore, per metterla in confronto con quella di Paolo Uccello, e perche si vegga come due pittori contemporanei anno trattato diversamente lo stesso soggetto’, and plates XIV and XVIII. 188 Ibid., p. [xlii]: ‘Abbiamo sotto gli occhi un pezzo celebre, si per la memoria che ne a conservata il Vasari; si ancora per la sua intrinseca bellezza, che fece già, la maravilglia del Buonarroti, e modernamente quella del cav. Mengs. La pittura è delle più piccole, ma in questo genere appunto, dice il Baldinucci, si rese Giotto più che in altro mirabile’; see also Vasari, Le vite (1568), I, p. 397: ‘una tavolina a tempera stata dipinta da Giotto con infinita diligenza, dentro la quale era la morte di Nostra Donna con gl’Apostoli intorno e con un Cristo che in braccio l’anima di lei riceveva. Questa opera dagl’artefici pittori era molto lodata e particolarmente da Michelangelo Buonarroti, il quale affermava, come si disse altra volta, la proprietà di questa istoria dipinta non potesse essere più simile al vero di quello ch’ell’era’, and Baldinucci, Notizie, I, p. 50: ‘Nella Chiesa d’Ognisanti di Firenze, che fu già de’ Frati Umiliati, era dipinta di mano di Giotto una Cappella, e quattro tavole, fra le quali una ve n’era dov’egli aveva rappresentato la Morte di Maria Vergine con gli Apostoli intorno, e Cristo suo Figliuolo in atto di riever l’anima di lei, opera che non solo era da tutti gli Artefici molto lodata, ma fino li stesso Michelagnolo Buonarruoti affermava la proprietà di quella storia dipinta non poter essere più simile al vero di quel ch’ella era.’

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Noah.189 Masaccio’s works, however, were the finest example of artistic development.

According to Lastri, Masaccio introduced ‘grace, relief, movement and liveliness’ into his

works, marking the transition to a new era in the evolution of Tuscan painting.190 Among

the artists after Masaccio, Lastri praised Antonio Pollaiuolo for his manner of rendering

action and naturalness in his Martyrdom of St Sebastian,191 Domenico Ghirlandaio for the

beautiful architecture, rendition of light and expressive figures shown in his Death of St

Francis,192 and Sandro Botticelli for his Virgin and Child with Saints, which was depicted with

‘much skill and taste’.193

Lastri’s project brings together the two main traditions which dominated Florentine

art writings: artistic biographies, in which writers adopted a historical and chronological

approach, and artistic guidebooks, in which writers paid more attention to works of art.

The two types of writing have demonstrated that, with a few exceptions – especially

Bocchi’s Le bellezze – the focus of Florentine authors was more on historiography and

issues such as the origins of painting rather than on the evaluation and appreciation of early

works of art. Lastri’s Etruria pittrice shows, however, that historiography and appreciation

reached a meeting point in eighteenth-century Florence and that artistic progress could be

illustrated through a chronological presentation of reproductive prints which were selected

according to clearly established principles.

189 Lastri, Etruria pittrice, p. [lxiii]: ‘è da notarsi lo scorto della figura di Noe’. 190 Ibid., p. [lxxxvii]: ‘da grazia, rilievo, movimento e vivacità alle figure’. In Masaccio’s case, Lastri chose to illustrate the Tribute Money , which was engraved by Carlo Lasinio, after a design by Giuseppe Calendi; see ibid., plate XIX. 191 Ibid., p. [cv]: ‘quanta naturalezza nella positura! Quanta azione!’; see ibid., plate XXIII. 192 Ibid., p. [cxx]: ‘ricchezza della composizione dell’espressione delle figure, e della nobilità de’campi ripieni di bella architettura, e di lumi opportunamente dati’; see ibid., plate. XXVII. 193 Ibid., p. [cxiii]: ‘con tanta maestria e gusto’; see ibid., plate XXV.

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CHAPTER 8

Views on Early Renaissance Art in Eighteenth-Century Florence: Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri’s Le Vite

In this section I shall examine the writings of an important figure of the eighteenth century,

the collector Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1675-1742) (fig. 91), in order to determine

what his artistic views were and how he contributed to the reception of early Renaissance

art in eighteenth-century Florence. Following in the footsteps of Baldinucci, Gabburri was

a prolific writer and publisher, as well as a collector and artistic adviser to Duke Leopoldo

de’ Medici. Moreover, he had regular exchanges of letters with artists, collectors and

connoisseurs both inside and outside Italy.1

By studying Gabburri’s unpublished Le vite,2 based on Pellegrino Orlandi’s

Abecedario pittorico, and its context, I shall attempt to place him within the general lines of

artistic historiography established by his predecessors and to uncover his intentions and

personal views from a work which he edited and expanded considerably. I shall consider

the reasoning behind his decision to enlarge Orlandi’s text and the contributions which he

made to it, the type of audience to which it was addressed, the sources which he cited and

the possible connections between his collection of works of art and his biographies of

artists.3 Guidebook writers such as Raffaello del Bruno acknowledged the importance of

Gabburri’s collection of ‘most outstanding paintings, prints and drawings’ in their own

writings, recommending it as a possible attraction for the visitors of Florence.4 While the

French collector, connoisseur and art dealer of early prints and drawings Pierre-Jean

Mariette (1649-1774) emphasized the quantity of Gabburri’s collection of prints and 1 For the corpus of Gabburri’s letters, most of them sent to him, see Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, pp. 97-405. For more information on collecting practices in Florence and Tuscany, and especially on Eighteenth-century collectors including, among others, Francesco Raimondo Adami (1711-1792), Sebastiano Zucchetti (1723-1801/1802), Giuseppe Ciaccheri (1724-1804), Luigi de Angelis (1761-1833), Angelo Maria Bandini (1726-1803)who were interested in the acquisition of works of art by early Renaissance artists, see S. Chiodo [et al.], ‘Collezionismo a Firenze e in Toscana’, in La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte, pp. 227-325. 2 A transcription of the entire manuscript, together with online reproductions of the manuscript, is available at http://grandtour.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/Gabburri.consultazione.html; in quoting from Gabburri’s Le vite, I have maintained the pagination in the transcription. 3 An inventory of Gabburri’s collection, now in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze (Ms A.XVIII, N.33) was first published, though only partially, in G. Campori, ‘Descrizione dei disegni della Galleria Gabburri di Firenze (1722)’, in his Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventari inediti di quadri, statue, disegni, Modena 1870, pp. 523-96. It is also available for online consultation at: http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/COLLEZIONE_GABBURRI.pdf 4 Del Bruno, Il ristretto, p. 48: ‘abitazione de’ Gabburri, ove sono pitture, stampe, e disegni singolarissimi’.

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drawings rather than its aristic value,5 my aim is to establish whether his practice as a

collector was consistent with his artistic judgements.

Like Sasso in Venice, Gabburri is a good example of a writer, connoisseur and

collector who had the authority to influence not only views in Florence, but also the

acquisition of particular works of art. The approach adopted by Gabburri in his four-

volume manuscript, moreover, seems to be in line with similar enterprises of his day. The

publication of encyclopedias and specialized dictionaries,6 including, for instance, Francesco

Milizia’s dictionary of architects of 1768,7 as well as the influence of academies in which

Gabburri was an active participant, make him a significant representative of the transition

from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, a period when a thriving network of

collectors, scholars and artists developed.

The first comprehensive biography of Gabburri was written in Latin by Gaetano

Veraci in 1742, the year of his death, and was published in Giovanni Lami’s Memorabilia

Italorum eruditione praestantium quibus vertens saeculum gloriatur.8 It contained information about

Gabburri’s origins, education, interests and the positions which he held at the Medici court,

together with a short list of his writings. Veraci tells us that Gabburri was born into a noble

Florentine family which was active in the literary and artistic circles of the day.9 He received

a very thorough training in music and poetry and studied painting with Onofrio Marinari

(1625-1715), a Florentine painter who also worked in Rome and who painted ‘with good

taste and adopted a finished and correct manner in his drawing’, as Gabburri reports in the

biography of his teacher.10 According to Veraci, the opportunity to study under such a great

5 P. de Chennevières and A. de Montaiglon, eds, L’Abecedario de P. J. Mariette et autres notes inedites’, in Archives de l’art français, 6 vols, Paris 1854-1856, II, p. 275: ‘sa collection se trouvè a sa mort plus nombreuse que belle’. 6 On encyclopedism in the eighteenth century, see R. Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions. Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture, Cambridge 2001; F. Tilkin, ed., L’encyclopédisme au XVIIIe siècle. Actes du Colloque organisé par le Groupe d’étude du XVIIIe siècle de l’Universitè de Liège, Geneva 2008; K. Lohsträter, F. Schock, eds, Die gesammelte Welt. Studien zu Zedlers Universal-Lexicon, Wiesbaden 2013. 7 Francesco Milizia, Vite de’ più celebri architetti d’ogni nazione e d’ogni tempo, Rome 1768; see also Schlosser, La letteratura, p. 485. 8 Giovanni Lami, Memorabilia Italorum eruditione praestantium quibus vertens saeculum gloriatur, 2 vols, Florence, 1742, I, pp. 305-13. 9 Ibid., p. 305; on Gabburri’s entourage, see also N. Turner, ‘The Gabburri/Rogers Series of Drawn Self-

Portraits and Portraits of Artists’, Journal of the History of Collections, 5, 1993, pp. 176-216, at p. 180, and F. Borroni Salvadori, ‘Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri e gli artisti contemporanei’, Annali della Scuola normale superiore di Pisa, 4, 1974, pp. 1504-64. 10 Lami, Memorabilia, I, p. 307: ‘Pictura scilicet, cuius egregia artis elementa didicit ab Honorio Marinario’; see also G. Perini, ‘Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri’, in DBI, LI, pp. 8-10; see also Gabburri, Le vite, IV, p. 2011-IV-C_129R: ‘dipinse con buon gusto e con maniera assai finita e corretta nel disegno’.

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master enabled Gabburri to learn art criticism and ‘to judge and understand’ works of art.11

Among his circle of friends, Gabburri was considered to have had ‘the finest taste and to

know how to distinguish himself from those who commend and praise to the skies a work

of little value and lie and perjure themselves a thousand times that it is by Titian, Correggio

and Raphael’.12 This statement already gives us an indication of Gabburri’s status as a

respected and cautious connoisseur and also suggests that he was in line with previous

writers regarding the canon of painters who were unanimously accepted as a point of

reference in assessing modern works of art.

As an adolescent, Gabburri was ‘among the youths enrolled to serve the rulers of

Florence’, including Cosimo III and Leopoldo de’ Medici. Later in 1734, he was named

luogotenente of the Accademia del Disegno, where he supported new publications, as well as

producing some of his own, awarded prizes and organized exhibitions, for which he also

lent works from his own collection.13 Among Gabburri’s writings, Veraci lists two orations

in defence of Michelangelo, which no longer survive,14 a number of poems and, most

importantly, his ‘huge work’: the Abecedarium pictorum or Le vite di pittori.15 While Veraci does

not provide further details about his orations and poems, he does tell us that Gabburri’s

recorded the names of artists, listed and illustrated their works, correcting many errors and

including art works which others had left out.16

11 Lami, Memorabilia, I, pp. 307-8: ‘sub tanto artifice, criticen in arte adeo exquisitam adeptus est, ut in diiudicandis et cognoscendis pictorum operibus nullus fortasse’. 12 See letter of Antonio Maria Zanetti to Gabburri, Venice, April 1723, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, p. 132: ‘Ella pero che è d’un finissimo gusto, sapra guardarsi da questi che comendano ed esaltano sino alle stelle una cosa che vale due baiocchi, e con mille giuramenti e mille spergiuri vogliono farla diventare di Tiziano, del Correggio e di Raffaelle.’ 13 On the exhibitions organized by the Accademia del Disegno and Gabburri’s contribution in his capacity as luogotenente, see Borroni Salvadori, ‘Le esposizioni d’arte a Firenze dal 1674 al 1767’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 18, 1974, pp. 1-166, esp. pp. 20, 38-44. 14 According to Perini, ‘Gabburri’, p. 9, these lost orations were directed against de Piles’s criticism of Michelangelo. 15 Lami, Memorabilia, I, p. 311: ‘opus magnae molis’. See Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri, Le vite di pittori, 4 vols: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, MS Palatino E. B. 9. 5, I-IV. An complete online transcription of the text is available at the website of the Fondazione Memofonte; see http://grandtour.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/Gabburri/consultazione.html Gabburri was also involved in the publication of new editions of Florentine texts on art such as the last volume of Baldinucci’s Notizie in 1728 and the second edition of Borghini’s Il Riposo in 1730, on which he collaborated with his friend Giovanni Gaetano Bottari. Gabburri’s role was to decide on the ornamental prints which decorated the frontispiece and the end-pages of each of the first three books of Borghini’s work, as well as providing a selection of prints from his own collection and supervising their execution. See Chennevières and Montaiglon, L’Abecedario, II, p. 275; Borghini/Bottari, Il Riposo, p. IV; Turner, ‘The Gabburri/Rogers Series’, p. 182; and Frangenberg, ‘The Limits of a Genre’, p. 293. 16 Lami, Memorabilia, I, p. 311.

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Pellegrino Orlandi’s Abecedario pittorico as a Source of Inspiration for Gabburri’s

Le vite

Questi sono libri che subito terminati sono imperfetti.17

Il Riposo18 was not the only project in which Gabburri displayed his interest in writings on

art and his familiarity with private and public art collections. By incorporating new and

updated material from an impressive number of Italian and non-Italian sources, he planned

to produce a new and expanded edition of Pellegrino Orlandi’s Abecedario pittorico, published

in Bologna in 1704. Structured as a biographical dictionary, Orlandi’s book recorded, in an

abbreviated form and in alphabetical order arranged by first name rather than surname, the

most important artists of the past and the present. As Nicholas Turner has noted, it was

not unusual for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers to organize biographies in

alphabetical order by the first name of artists rather than chronologically: the table of

contents in Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni (1672) and in

Leone Pascoli’s Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni (1730) served as precedents for this

arrangement.19

Orlando’s dictionary of artists was written for dilettanti and connoisseurs and was

meant to be consulted as a reference book. It also contained five tables inserted at the end

of the book, with names of all the artists discussed, a bibliography of their lives and works,

a list of books about architecture and perspective and another of books on drawing and,

finally, printers’ marks.20 As Alessia Cecconi has pointed out, the format of Orlandi’s

Abecedario made it a useful, one-volume guide to artists and their works, with the

17 See Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, p. 186, letter CXXXI, Orlandi to Anton Francesco Marmi, 26 November 1748. 18 Raffaello Borghini’s first edition of ‘Il Riposo’ was published in 1584. It is a fictitious dialogue, divided into four sections, between four gentlemen. In the first two sections, where they discuss matters of decorum, style and religious art, Borghini draws on writings from the Counter-Reformation period. The last two sections contain biographies of ancient and modern artists; see S. Orienti, ‘Su Il Riposo di Raffaelle Borghini’, Rivista d’Arte, XXVII, 1951-1952, pp. 221-6; Frangenberg, ‘The Art of Talking about Sculpture’; L. Popoviciu, ‘Who Inspired Book Four of Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo’, in Di suo’ maniera e di suo’ aria. Studii în onoarea Ancăi Oroveanu, eds R. Demetrescu, I. Cărăbaş, I. Măgureanu, Bucharest 2012, pp. 38-57. 19 See Turner, ‘The Gabburri/Rogers Series’, p. 188, n. 21. 20 See Pellegrino Orlandi, Abecedario pittorico, Bologna 1704, sigs ae-m5v (‘Abecedario pittorico in cui sono comprese cinque tavole’).

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alphabetical arrangement facilitating the search for specific artists. Furthermore, the five

tables enabled some readers to use it for personal research, others for solving attribution

issues.21

The correspondence between Orlandi and the Florentine erudito Anton Francesco

Marmi (1665-1736) sheds light on the preparation of the first and the second edition of the

Abecedario. From their letters, we learn about the difficulties posed by such a project and the

changes which were made between one edition and the other.22 We can also see how

Orlandi collected his material, usually calling on friends, including Marmi, to send him

biographical notes about living French and Florentine artists. For instance, in a letter of

1714, he sent Marmi a list of Florentine painters – Alessandro Gherardini (1655-1723),

Anton Domenico Gabbiani (1652-1726), Bartolomeo Bimbi (1648-1730), Michelangelo

Palloni (1637-1712), Andrea Scacciati (1642-1704), Antonio Giusti (1624-1705), Domenico

Tempesta (1611-1689) and Antonio Franchi (1638-1709) – asking him to confirm their

dates and whether they were still alive, so that he could introduce updated information in

his revised edition of 1719.23 He, however, had to reduce some of the material provided by

Marmi in order to fit the entries into the allocated space.24Another concern of Orlandi in

his new edition, which contained 500 new biographies, was to include as many non-Italian

artists as possible. This attempt, however, proved to be difficult as most of books about

these artists were published in foreign languages, which meant that he had to depend on

friends to translate these works for him or else leave some of these artists out.25

21 See Cecconi, ‘Nella presente aggiunta’, p. 4. 22 See Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, pp. 179-90; there are 13 letters sent by Orlandi to Marmi between 1714 and 1719; see also Cecconni, ‘Nella presente aggiunta’. 23 Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, letter CCXII, Bologna, Orlandi to Marmi, 8 July 1714, p. 180: ‘che V. S. Ill.ma si voglia degnare dirmi se sono vivi o quando sono morti, I seguenti Pittori Fiorentini…’. 24 Ibid., letter CCXIV, Bologna, Orlandi to Marmi, 15 September, pp. 180-81: ‘mi spiace solo che bisogna ridurle al compendio come sono tutte le altre per seguire l’ordine del libro.’ 25

Ibid., letter CCXVIII, Bologna, Orlandi to Marmi, 9 August 1718: ‘questa fu una delle cagioni che fui sforzato a tacere molti… M’avvisa ancora da Parigi in questo ordinario Monsu di Crosat esservi pochi Olandesi, Inglesi e Spagnuoli, rispondo che Butron ha stampato in lingua spagnuola i suoi, Rickesen in lingua fiamminga i nazionali, e Houbraken Pittore in Amsterdam altri, ma quei diavoli di linguaggi m’ hanno fatto battere la testa per i muri.’ Pierre Crozat was one of the friends who helped Orlandi to gather information about Dutch, Spanish and English artists by sending him lists and biographical information which he had translated from works written in foreign languages such as Juan de Butrón’s Discursos apologeticos, en que se defiende la ingenuidad del arte de la pintura, Madrid 1606, and Arnold Houbraken’s De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, Amsterdam 3 vols, 1718-1721. ‘Rickesen’ is probably a garbled reference to Jonathan Richardson, a contemporary of Houbraken; see his Two Discourses: I. An Essay on the Art Criticism as It Relates to Painting, II. An Argument on Behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur, 8 vols, London 1719. See Cecconi, ‘Nella presente aggiunta’, p. 4. Joachim von Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste was, however, available in Latin, and Gabburri quotes from the Latin edition; see Joachim von

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Orlandi’s letters also illustrate his working methods in compiling the new edition of

his biographical dictionary of artists and show how he extracted information from other

texts circulating at the time. He refers, for instance, to the treatise of the English

connoisseur Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745), An Essay on the Art Criticism as It Relates to

Painting,26 which he received from the author and in which the entries on painters at the end

were based on the Abecedario pittorico.27 In addition, we learn from his correspondence about

the difficulties which he had to face in carrying out a project which required constant

revision and correction.28 Despite these difficulties, Orlandi’s encyclopedic effort to

incorporate as much information about artists as possible inspired other writers, including

Gabburri, to embark on similar enterprises.

The Abecedario pittorico proved to be a popular reference book. Many editions were

published, not only in Florence, but also in Venice and Naples; it also appeared in an

English translation.29 Each of the new editions was enriched with additional information

and contained different dedications, either to a connoisseur (Pierre Crozat in the Bolognese

edition of 1719), a painter (Francesco Mura in the Florentine edition of 1731) or a ruler

(Frederic August III of Poland in the Venetian edition of 1753). Mariette first attempted to

have the work translated into French around 1733; but, as appears from a letter he sent to

Gabburri, he postponed the idea on account of the difficulties posed by such a large work.30

The plan to bring out a French version of Orlandi’s work was taken up again much later by

Mariette and finally published in six volumes between 1851 and 1860 by Philippe

Chennevières and Anatole de Montaiglonin. A frequent correspondent and friend of

Gabburri, Mariette encouraged his project to produce a new edition of Orlandi’s book and

Sandrart’s Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae. Sive de veris et genuinis huiusdem proprietatibus, theorematibus, secretis atque requisitis aliis …, Nuremberg 1683. 26 See n. 25 above. 27 Campori, ed., Lettere artistiche, letter CCXIII, Bologna, Orlandi to Marmi, 19 November 1718, p. 186: ‘Il Sig. Richardson di Londra famosissimo Ritrattista mi ha favorito del suo libro stampato in Londra nel 1715 intitolato Saggio sopra la Teorica della Pittura… Nel fine poi del libro ha compilato dal mio Abecedario, e descritti secolo per secolo i Pittori che fiorirono in quelli.’ 28 Ibid., letter CCXXI, Bologna, Orlandi to Marmi, 26 November 1718, p. 186: ‘io so quanto sia laborioso il mio lavoro di tutto il giorno a vedere, rivedere, leggere e rileggere’. 29 Orlandi’s book was reprinted in Bologna in 1719, in Florence in 1731, 1776 and 1788, in Naples in 1731, 1733 and 1769 and in Venice in 1753; see Cecconi, ‘Nella presente aggiunta’, p. 7. The English translation, published in London in 1730, was issued under the title: Repertorium Sculptile-Typicum: or a Complete Collection and Explanation of the Several Marks and Cyfers by which the Prints of the Best Engravers are Distinguished. With an Alphabetical Index of their Names, Places of Abode, and Times in which they Lived, translated from the Abecedario Pittorico of Pellegrino Orlandi. 30 See letter CXI, Paris, Mariette to Gabburri, 1 June 1733, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, pp. 398-400: ‘Io avevo disegnato di tradurlo in franzese, ma la difficultà di questo lavoro me n’ha fatta passar la voglia.’

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supplied him, as did many of Gabburri’s regular correspondents from Italy and abroad,

with documentation. Gabburri based his text on the edition published in Naples in 1731,

which included entries on Florentine, Roman and Neapolitan artists, along with foreign

ones. In the next section, I shall consider why Gabburri decided to expand the Abecedario

pittorico, given that many revised editions of Orlandi’s work had already been published and

were constantly being updated. I shall also try to clarify why he chose to use the Neapolitan

edition of the Abecedario rather than the Florentine one, even though both were published

in 1731. Finally, I shall place Gabburri’s Le vite in the context of eighteenth-century artistic

literature.

Gabburri’s Le vite

In a letter of 1732, Gabburri asked Mariette to send him brief notes about painters,

sculptors, architects and printmakers who lived in France, so that he could include the

information in a work that he intended to produce, based on Orlandi’s Abecedario, which

had recently been published in Naples.31 Responding to this request, Mariette welcomed

Gabburri’s initiative, adding: ‘even though it is a useful book, Orlandi’s Abecedario is so full

of errors that no one can use it without having to resort to the original books which he

quotes’.32 Furthermore, he agreed to offer his help by providing notes on French artists.

This exchange between the two scholars shows that, as early as 1732, Gabburri was

planning to gather material for a new, enlarged and more accurate edition of the Abecedario

pittorico and that the plan had Mariette’s support. It also shows that previous attempts to

update Orlandi’s work were considered unsatisfactory by expert readers like Mariette. There

is no record that Gabburri travelled around Italy in search of documentation; however, it is 31 See letter XCIX, Florence, Gabburri to Mariette, 4 October 1732, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, p. 370: ‘se non e un abusarsi della vostra gentilezza, mi avanzerei a pregarvi che mi faceste il favore di farmi una nota dei pittori, scultori architetti e intagliatori in rame, che ora vivono in Francia, indicando la nascita e il loro valore, con quelle particolarità che a voi parranno più proprie, ma nel medesimo tempo con la maggior brevita che sia possibile, pensando io di far ristampare l’Abbecedario Pittorico del padre Orlandi, con tutto che sia stato ristampato adesso in Napoli con delle aggiunte.’ 32 See letter CXI, Paris, Mariette to Gabburri, 1 June 1733, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, p. 400: ‘questo è un libro utile, ma che è tanto pieno di sbagli, che non se ne puo fare uso nessuno, se non si hanno i libri originali che egli cita. Gli estratti che egli ne da sono per la maggior parte infedeli e tronchi; e inoltre vi manca un’infinità di cose... Io vi esorto a intraprendere questa fatica, che in verità è degna di voi. Se io posso dal canto, mio aiutarvi per quel che riguarda la scuola di Francia, lo farò con tutto il cuore.’

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evident that he had called on his correspondents to supply him with information not only

about non-Italian artists, particularly Dutch ones,33 but also about Italian painters who

worked outside of Florence.34 Gabburri also asked for advice concerning works of art in

private collections, so that his entries would be complete and accurate.

While most editors of Orlandi’s Abecedario put emphasis on a particular aspect of

the book when they made new additions – for instance, the 1719 edition, dedicated to

Crozat, contained new material predominantly related to French artists – the Neapolitan

edition on which Gabburri drew and which was emended and enlarged by Antonio

Roviglione, had a much broader aim.35 In addition to including Neapolitan artists,

Roviglione sought to add entries on both Roman and Florentine artists, as well as non-

Italian ones. His Aggiunta to Orlandi’s text included only biographies of artists who were

not mentioned in the original. Roviglione extracted his new information from Baldinucci’s

Notizie and from works by Lione Pascoli for Roman artists, Ippolito Zanelli for the

Bolognese artist Carlo Cignani, and Antonio Campi for Cremonese artitsts.36 ‘A perfect

painter and poet’, as his compatriot and the main biographer of Neapolitan artists,

Bernardo De Dominici, described him in Le vite, first published in 1742,37 Roviglione was

an important figure in the intellectual circles of eighteenth-century Naples and was known

33 The Rome-based collector Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714) and the Danish traveller Frederic Louis Norden (1708-1742) are among those who supplied information for Gabburri’s project and provided him with notes on non-Italian artsts; see letter XLV, Rome, 8 March 1704, Resta to Gabburri, in ibid., pp. 109-13, and Zibaldone Gabburriano. Miscellanea di lettere e appunti conservata presso la Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, MS Palatino 1195, fasc. 1359, I. 11, letter of Frederic Louis Norden to Gabburri, 29 May 1736; For the online transcription, see Gabburri, Zibaldone Gabburriano, ed. B. M. Tomasello, Studi di Memofonte, 1, 2008, pp. 1-21, at http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/ZIBALDONE_GABBURRIANO.pdf 34 For most of Gabburri’s correspondence containing notes on artists sent to him by his network of friends across Europe, see Zibaldone Gabburriano in MS Palatino 1195 and 1198. 35 See Cecconi, ‘Nella presente aggiunta’, pp. 1-23, at p. 8, and O. Morisani, ‘L’edizione napoletana dell’Abecedario dell’Orlandi e l’aggiunta di Antonio Roviglione’, Rassegna storica napoletana, 1-2, 1941, pp. 19-56. 36 L’abecedario pittorico dall’autore ristampato, corretto ed accresciuto di molti professori e di altre notizie spettanti alla pittura ed in questa ultima impressione con nuova e copiosa aggiunta di alti professori, al Signor Francesco Mura eccellente e magnifico pittore napoletano, in Bologna, ed in Napoli per Angelo Vocola a Fontana Medina, Naples 1731; see also p. 431: ‘Aggiunta dell’Abecedario d’altri pittori, e scultori non scritti dall’Autore. Ricavati dal Baldinucci, e da altri Scrittori, per opera, e diligenza del Signor D. Antonio Roviglione Napolitano’; see also Morisani, ‘L’edizione napoletana’, pp. 19 and 21; Lione Pascoli, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni, 2 vols, Rome 1790-1796; Ippolito Zanelli, Vita del gran Pittore Carlo Cignani, Bologna 1722; and Antonio Campi, Cremona fedelissima città illustrata, Bologna 1585. 37 See Bernardo De Dominici, Vite dei pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, second edition, IV, Naples 1844, p. 531: ‘perfetto pittore e poeta’.

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as a collector of prints and drawings and as a connoisseur.38 Even though there is no

evidence that Gabburri knew him personally, his reasons for deciding to use Roviglione’s

edition of the Abecedario as the basis for his own work are evident: a text which

incorporated such varied and comprehensive information added by an eminent

connoisseur, would lend credibility to Gabburri’s edition and also correspond well to his

desire to produce something on a larger scale, which included more artists, together with

portrait drawings of almost all of them.39 The Veronese painter Antonio Balestra writes in a

letter of 1733 which he sent to Gabburri that the planned additions would double the size

of the text.40 This gives us an idea of the ambition of Gabburri’s project and of his

intention to produce an encyclopedic work on art.

While Gabburri relied on collectors and connoisseurs with whom he was on

friendly terms, as well as on artists of his day, in preparing the biographical notes for his

Vite, his information mainly came from written texts, either published or in manuscript. A

list of all the sources cited by Gabburri, arranged alphabetically, has recently been made

available online by the Fondazione Memofonte.41 The list reveals Gabburri’s erudition and

the wide variety of works on which he drew: there are nearly 300 titles,42 ranging from

guidebooks to art treatises and biographies of artists, and from catalogues of prints to

letters, archival documents and literary works in Italian, Latin, French, Dutch, English,

Spanish and German.43 His attempt to produce a ‘compilation’ of writings on art, published

and unpublished, up to his own day and to incorporate these into his own work shows that

he belonged to an environment which was open to influences from outside Italy and to a

culture which promoted the circulation and use of art literature which was of particular

interest to scholars, collectors and connoiseurs.

38 See Morisani, ‘L’edizione napoletana’, p. 20. 39 On the portrait drawings, see Turner, ‘The Gabburri/Rogers Series’, pp. 182-5. 40 See letter CVII, Venice, 16 April 1733, Antonio Balestra to Gabburri, in Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta, II, pp. 385-7: ‘Vedo poi le copiose aggiunte che V. S. illustrissima ha fatto per l’Abbecedario pittorico, che se si ristampa vuol accrescer il volume doppio mentre dice che sono più di duemila nomi d’autori gli aggiunti.’ 41 See A. Cecconi, V. Gelli, M. Nastasi and R. Viale, eds, ‘Bibliografia Gabburriana: Fonti citati nelle Vite di Pittori di Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri’, Studi di Memofonte, 1, 2008, pp. 1-21; http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/biblio_gabburriana_I_2008.pdf 42 Of these titles, 156 were owned by Gabburri. 43 See ‘Ne seguono adesso i libri trattanti di scultura, pittura ed architettura o altre materie ad esse appartenenti’, in Descrizione dei disegni della Galleria Gabburri in Firenze, A. XVIII. 33 BNCF, Florence, pp. 297-325, online at at http://www.memofonte.it/home.files/pdf/COLLEZIONE_GABBURRI.pdf. For his collection of drawings, see Campori, ‘Descrizione dei disegni della Galleria Gabburri’.

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There was no contemporary enterprise in Venice of the magnitude of Gabburri’s

proposed volume: even Sasso’s much later project, though a similar type of work, was on a

significantly smaller scale than Le vite and was limited to local artists. There were both

Italian and non-Italian writings at the time, either devoted to art or to other topics, which

must have inspired and prompted Gabburri’s plan for such a vast work. For instance,

among Gabburri’s sources was a collection of Dutch biographies: Jacob Campo

Weyerman’s De levens-beschryningen der nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, published

in four volumes in 1729.44 Also, Domenico Maria Manni’s Osservazioni istoriche was intended

to be published in thirty volumes, seven of which were available for consultation during

Gabburri’s day.45 These are just two of the many examples of encyclopedic projects which

began to emerge in the eighteenth century in a common attempt to establish a new

direction in writing, based on the compilation of a large quantity of material in multiple

volumes to serve as reference books and authoritative sources. Gabburri made effective use

of these written sources by providing citations at the end of each entry and indicating when

they contained additional biographical details or information about the artist’s works and

their location or reproductions in the form of prints.

Starting with Orlandi and continuing with Gabburri, a shift occurred in the

approach taken in Italian literature on art. The emphasis was no longer placed on local

artists, as it had been with Bocchi, Cinelli and even Baldinucci – though not with non-

Italian writers on art such as Van Mander, Sandrart or de Piles. Gabburri, following

Orlandi, approached art history from a much broader perspective, both as collector with a

wide network of international correspondents and as a scholar with wide-ranging

knowledge and an interest in antiquarianism.

How, then, does Gabburri’s enterprise compare to the established tradition of local

Florentine writings, and why did he not feel the need to affirm the preeminence of

Florentine artists? Gabburri may have thought that the Florentine writers before him had

already shown a close attachment to their local art and that, rather than developing this line

further, he wanted to lay the foundations for a universal history of art, built on a large

corpus of artistic literature. Whereas inVenice writers on art were somewhat isolated and

44 Jacob Campo Weyerman, De levens-beschryningen der nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, met een uytbreyding over de schilder-konst der ouden, The Hague 1729. For further information on Gabburri’s use of Weyerman’s work, see Gelli, ‘Osservazioni’, pp. 6-8. 45 See Cecconi, Gelli, Nastasi and Viale, eds, ‘Bibliografia Gabburriana’, p. 13, n. 25.

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preoccupied mainly with promoting local art and artists, Florence in the eighteenth century

seems to have been more open to cultural exchanges and influences, both in terms of

collecting, which in Florence, especially by the Medici, had never been confined to local

artists, and in the approach to writing on art.

The Biographies of Early Painters

…e sospiravano le chiese, i palagi ed i mercanti le opere

sue…46

The nature of Gabburri’s manuscript of Le vite presents difficulties and challenges for an

analysis of his biographies of early Renaissance painters. The large size of the work and the

alphabetical ordering of the artists (by first name) indicate that it was meant to be used as a

reference book.47 Gabburri included both Italian and non-Italian artists, of all types (e.g.,

painters, sculptors, architects and miniaturists); and this encyclopedic approach did not lend

itself to the expression of artistic judgements. According to Giovanna Perini, Gabburri

tended to make personal remarks only in connection with his artist friends or their

protectors.48 As we have seen, this was not an uncommon practice: Sasso also praised

artists and works found in the collection of his clients and collector friends,49 which makes

it difficult to distinguish between his own artistic preferences and his role as a connoisseur

and adviser who wished to please his clients.

As the compiler of a biographical dictionary, Gabburri’s principal aim was to

present the essential information about each artist and his work and to cite the relevant

bibliography.50 His entry on Andrea del Castagno,51 for instance, contains no information

46 Gabburri, the life of Andrea del Sarto, in Le vite, I, p. 180-1-C_0099V. 47 Gabburri’s unfinished manuscript entered the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze after 1803 and was divided into four volumes; see Borroni Salvadori, ‘Gabburri e gli artisti’, p. 1554. 48 Perini, ‘Gaburri’, p. 10. 49 See, e.g., the discussion of John Strange in Chapter 5, pp. 102-13 above. 50 For more information on Gabburri’s use of written sources, both Italian and non-Italian, see Gelli, ‘Osservazioni’, p. 1-16, and, for a list of all the references quoted, see Cecconi, Gelli, Nastasi and Viale, eds, ‘Bibliografia gabburriana’, pp. 2-19. 51 See Gabburri, Le vite, I, p. 177-I-C_98R: ‘Andrea del Castagno fiorentino, così detto per essere nato in una piccola villetta detta il Castagno nel Mugello, contado fiorentino, detto ancora Andrea degl’Impiccati, perché

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about Andrea del Castagno’s works, but it does reveal Gaburri’s knowledge of the written

sources and his capacity for synthesis. I want now to investigate how he incorporated the

earlier tradition of writing on art in his own work, asking whether he sought to distinguish

himself from his predecessors or, instead, to preserve and accentuate previous attitudes

towards the art of the early Renaissance.

The first significant entry, for our purposes, is the one on Cimabue. Gabburri states

that he ‘deserves more attention than Orlandi gave him’52 and that, therefore, he had

decided to extend the entry considerably. Like his Florentine predecessors, including Vasari,

Borghini and Baldinucci, as well as the guidebook writers, Gabburri endorses the idea that

Cimabue was the ‘restorer of painting’,53 which he took to a different level – from the ‘deep

shadows in which it had been buried by the previous painters’ to a more advanced stage,

l’anno 1478 dipinse al naturale, in vari scorci, appesi tutti i capi della congiura contro Giuliano e Lorenzo fratelli de’ Medici. Fu uomo fiero. Uccise con diabolica sceleratezza e con ingratitudine mostruosa Domenico Veneziano, che cortesemente gli aveva insegnato il dipingere a olio, per l’invidia di sentire tanto lodare le opere di quello. Visse anni 71. Vasari, parte II, a 394 nella sua Vita. Monsù de Piles nel Compendio delle vite dei pittori, edizione II, libro II, a 145. Francesco Albertini, prete fiorentino, nel suo Memoriale ecc. Stampato in Firenze nel 1510, a 4 tergo e in altri luoghi lo chiama sempre Andreino. Filibien, libro I, da 130 a 134. Florent Le Comte nel suo libro intitolato Gabinetto di quadri, statue e stampe ecc., libro I, a 85.’ For the works cited by Gabburri, see Cecconi, Gelli, Nastasi, Viale, eds, ‘Bibliografia Gabburriana’, pp. 1-21, and Vasari, Le vite (1550), p. 394; Roger de Piles, Abrégé de la vie des peintres, avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un traité du peintre parfait, de la connaissance des dessins et de l'utilité des estampes, second edition, Paris 1715, pp. 145-7; Albertini, Memoriale, pp. [vi-ix]; André Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes, 5 vols, Paris 1666-1688, I, p. 146; Florent Lecomte, Cabinet des singularitez d’architecture, peinture, sculpture, et graveure, ou Introduction à la connoissance des plus beaux arts figurès sous les tableaux, les statues et les estampes, 3 vols, Brussels 1702, I, pp. 85-6. For Orlandi’s shorter entry on Andrea del Castagno, which Gabburri included and expanded on, see his Abecedario pittorico, (1731), p. 55: ‘Andrea del Castagno Fiorentino, detto Andrea dagl’impicatti, perchè l’anno 1478. Dipinse al naturale in vari scorci appesi tutti I capi della congiura contro Giuliano, e Lorenzo fratelli dei Medici: fu Uomo fiero; uccise Domenico Veneziano, che gli fu Maestro, per l’invidia di sentire tanto lodare l’opere di quegli: visse 71 anni. Vasari p. 2. fol. 300.’ The amount of information provided by Gabburri varies considerably from one artist to another, regardless of the epoch: e.g., Gabburri tells us very little about Altobello (Gabburri, Le vite, I, p. 168 – I – C_093V), Andrea del Castagno (ibid., p. 177 – I – C_98R) and Bartolommeo Montagna (ibid., p. 394 – I – C_221V), while going into much more detail in the biographies of Primaticcio (ibid., pp. 139 – I – C_069R - 140.3 – I – C_071R), Altichiero dal Zevio (ibid., pp. 154 – I – C_086V - 155 – I – C_087R) and Andrea Mantegna (ibid., pp. 184 – I – C_101V - 185 – I – C_102R). 52 Gabburri, Le vite, II, p. 553 – II – C_028R: ‘Merita certamente Cimabue una memoria più distinta di quella che ne ha lasciato il padre maestro Orlandi.’ Orlandi’s entry was limited to basic information, without mentioning any of his works or the specific contributions he made to Florentine painting; see Pellegrino Orlandi, Abecedario pittorico, Florence 1753, pp. 123: ‘Cimabue Pittore Fiorentino, di nome Giovanni, per istinto naturale, che aveva alla pittura, imparò dai pittori Greci, chiamati a Firenze per restaurare gli antichi mosaici: principiò a vestire le figure e ad accostarsi al naturale, sìcche in quei tempi fece stupire Pisa, e Firenze con le tavole d’Altare, che dipingeva sopra incrostatura d’oro, ajutando l’espressioni delle figure con motti, e lettere. Visse 60 anni, e morì nel 1300. Vasari par. 1. Fol. 1.’; see Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 103-8. 53 Gabburri, Le vite, II, p. 553 – II – C_028R: ‘primo restauratore della pittura’.

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laying the foundations for a new era.54 Gabburri acknowledged the importance of early

painters for the development of Italian painting, singling out Giotto and Cimabue for

Florence and Francesco and Iacobello del Fiore for Venice.55

The next artists generally believed to have been influential in the evolution of Italian

painting were Giovanni Bellini in Venice and Masaccio in Florence. Gabburri’s treatment of

Giovanni Bellini is rather surprising: instead of presenting the painter’s achievements or

expanding on Orlandi’s entry,56 as he usually does, he simply lists the available artistic

literature on him.57 He does the same in his entries on Andrea Mantegna58 and Antonello da

Messina.59 His entry on Massaccio, however, is more extensive and contains important

views on the progress of the art. Gabburri saw in Masaccio an excellent painter who

exerted a major influence during his own lifetime and in the following centuries and who

54 Ibid.: ‘e aprisse ai pittori dopo di lui una nuova strada per poter incamminarsi a una total perfezione, alla quale tanti e tanti vi son giunti, che per avventura sarebbero restati in quelle profonde tenebre sino al presente se Cimabue non avesse fatto conoscer loro che collo studio si può giugnere più oltre di quello che non hanno saputo conoscere gli antecessori.’ 55 Like Ridolfi and Boschini in Chapter 2, n. 20, and Chapter 4, n. 12 above, Gabburri preferred the style of

Francesco and Jacobello del Fiore to the dryness and hardness of their predecessors, and he praised their intelligent and correct manner of painting; see Gabburri, Le vite, II, p. 901-II-C_204R: ‘Francesco Flore veneziano e Jacobello suo figliuolo, posero in reputazione la pittura e riformarono l’arte nella durezza e nella seccaggine, sebbene il tempo ha consumato le fatiche di Francesco, si scopre però in quelle di Jacobello, conservate sino al tempo d’oggi in Venezia, un lume di soda intelligenza e maniera gastigata e corretta.’ 56 Orlandi, Abecedario (1753), pp. 486-7: ‘Zan Bellino Cittadino Veneziano figlio, e scolaro di Jacopo, e fratello di Gentile, tutti Pittori superati dalla di lui gentile, pastosa e più elegante maniera, col metodo di dpignere a olio (segreto, che riportò da Antonello da Messina, con la finzione di farsi ritrarre.) Per gloria di questo grand’ Uomo basta dire, che fu unico Maestro del famoso Ziziano: a cagione della morte soppravenutagli in età di 90. Anni nel 1514 non potendo terminare la Baccheide, che dipigneva per Alfonso I. Duca d Ferrara, fu terminata dallo stesso Tiziano, ed ora il quadro sta in Casa Aldobrandini. Ridolfi par. 1. Fol 47’; see Ridolfi Le meraviglie, I, pp. 63-75. Orlandi does not include Giovanni Bellini in the Florentine edition of his Abecedario. 57 Gabburri, Le vite, III, p. 1311 – III – C_150R: ‘Di questo celebre autore, che dal padre maestro Orlandi viene detto Zan Bellino, ne vien fatta commemorazione nella ristampa delle Ricche minere della pittura del Boschini del 1733, a 18. Lomazzo libro VI, a 393. Vincenzio Carducci, Dialogo primo, a 17 tergo. Torre, a 370. Vedi Zan Bellino nel padre maestro Orlandi. Fu maestro di Tiziano e fratello di Gentile. Viveva nel 1414. Sono se opere in Venezia, in Ferrara, in Firenze e in molte gallerie dell’Europa. Fu professore molto stimato nei suoi tempi, a segno che meritò di esser lodato dall’Ariosto nel suo poema. Vasari, parte II, a 429, nella sua Vita. Sandrart, parte II, libro II, capitolo VI, a 116, dove dice che morì di 90 anni. Pinarolo, tomo II, a 71. Vedi Zanbellino nel fine del padre maestro Orlandi.’ For the 1733 edition of Boschini’s Le ricche minere, see Zanetti, Descrizione, pp. 19-20. For the other sources cited, see Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura ed architettura, Milan 1584, p. 393; Vincente Carducho, Dialogos de la pintura, su defensa, origen, definicion, modos y diferencias, Madrid 1633, fol. 17v; Carlo, Torre, Il ritratto di Milano, diviso in tre libri, colorito da Carlo Torre, canonico dell’insigne basilica degli Appostoli, ... Nel quale vengono descritte tutte le antichità, e modernità, che vedevansi, e che si vedono nella città di Milano, Milan 1674, pp. 392-3; Vasari, Le vite (1550), pp. 431-9; Sandrart, Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae, p. 116; Giacomo Pinarolo L’antichità di Roma con le cose più memorabili che in essa di presente antiche,e moderne si trovano, 2 vols, Rome 1703, I, p. 71. 58 Ibid., I, pp. 184 – I – C_101V - 185 – I – C_102R. 59 Ibid., I, p. 204 – I – C_119V.

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had reached a level of perfection in his art.60 Among the most admired of Masaccio’s

works, he mentions the frescoes in the Brancacci chapel, which served as a model of

excellence for later generations of artists.61 So far, Gabburri’s views are traditional; he

embraces the opinions of the writers he cites without challenging them. The examples of

works of art which he mentions and presents as most worthy of praise are those usually

found in other writings on art. This is also true of his entry on Domenico Ghirlandaio, in

which he says that the frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinita and in Santa Maria

Novella were painted with ‘appropriateness, decorum and truthfulness’.62 If we compare

some of Gabburri’s views with those expressed by Venetian writers such as Boschini and

Zanetti, we find similar patterns and vocabulary employed in referring to Renaissance

paintings.63 Gabburri also maintained that the works of Masaccio and Ghirlandaio reflected

the ‘pure truth’, had inspired an artist such as Raphael,64 and avoided the mannerist

‘distortions’, of which he seemed to have disapproved, comparing the current state of

painting to ‘a miserable shipwreck’.65

One of Gabburri’s longest and most complex biographies is that of the ‘divine’

Raphael, in which he cites around fifty titles, both Italian and non-Italian, including poems

and sonnets written in his honour. This illustrates Gabburri’s desire to produce a

comprehensive reference work and to show that he had taken account of the artistic

literature which preceded him. Raphael is presented as a painter who looked back to the art

of antiquity for inspiration, but who was as inferior to ancient artists as modern ones were

to him.66

The lengthy and laudatory entry on Fra Bartolommeo suggests that he was one of

Gabburri’s favourites artists: he also owned a large number of his drawings (more than

60 Ibid., IV, p. 1804 – IV – C_017V: ‘ridusse nonostante la pittura in così alto grado di perfezione’. 61 Ibid.: ‘Fu veramente Masaccio uno dei primi lumi nella pittura, non solo nei suoi tempi ma eziandio nei secoli posteriori...ridusse la pittura in così alto grado di perfezione.’ 62 Ibid., II, p. 677 – II – C_090R: ‘con proprietà, decoro e verità’. 63 See Chapter 3, n. 35, and Chapter 4, n. 15 above. 64 Gabburri, Le vite, II, p. 677 – II – C_090R: ‘lontani dall’ammanierato, seguitano il buon costume e il vero stile degli antichi e, forzati dalla pura verità, hanno detto che in Domenico Grillandaio e in Masaccio si ritrovano i veri maestri di Raffaello e si riconosce cio che dicono gli scrittori.’ 65 See his life of Filippo Lippi, in ibid., II, p. 865 – II – C_184R: ‘vanno a fare un miserabile naufragio molti pittori moderni’. Gabburri’s views about the decline of modern art are similar to those of Bottari, for instance: see Chapter 7, n. 86 above. 66 Ibid., IV, p. 2204 – IV – C_227V: ‘dallo studio delle statue antiche ne ricavò...quella bella naturale armonia e simplicità, che poi diede alle figure’; ‘Raffaello era tanto inferiore agli artefici antichi, quanto gli artefici moderni sono inferiori a lui’. For the views of earlier writers on Raphael, see Chapter 6, nn. 42-3 above.

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500), which he kept in two volumes.67 Discussing his painting of the Resurrected Christ (fig.

92) in San Marco, Gabburri says that it is superior to an early painting by Raphael. He

immediately supports this claim by mentioning that Florentine, Roman and north Italian

professori had unanimously agreed that Bartolommeo’s painting was superior because

Raphael had not yet reached his third and more perfect style.68 He even ventures to call Fra

Bartolommeo ‘the Raphael of the Florentines’.69

Gabburri’s biographies were mainly compilations of the views found in the most

important earlier writings on art, especially Italian and French works.70 As we have seen,

Orlandi’s Abecedario was available in a number of later editions, but there was still a

perceived need, on the part of the international community of connoisseurs, for a more

thorough and updated version; and this is what Gabburri aimed to provide by

incorporating a vast amount of material in his Vite. The sheer bulk of information he

added, together with the alphabetical arrangement of the work, makes it is difficult to

discern his view of artistic evolution over the centuries. Nor was Gabburri particularly

interested in expressing his own artistic judgements and preferences. He was not an original

writer, but a compiler. His dictionary of artists reveals his encyclopedic spirit, his

engagement with connoisseurs, collectors and writers inside and outside of Italy who

provided him with material and his strategy of drawing on a very wide range of sources to

enrich his work and make it more appealing to a broad readership.

Nevertheless, we can say that Gabburri had the same esteem for early Renaissance

painters as his predecessors. Moreover, even though the majority of art works which he

himself owned were by artists of his own day, there were notable pieces from previous

centuries, including drawings by Paolo Ucello, Jacopo Pontormo, Titian, Michelangelo,

67 See C. Fischer, ‘Fra Bartolommeo’s Landscape Drawings’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 33, 1989, pp. 301-42, esp. pp. 301-2. The two volumes are in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. 68 Gabburri, Le vite, II, p. 873 – II – C_188R : ‘che ben dimostrano quanto fosse grande il valore di questo sublime artefice, mentre il Cristo risorgente, stando collocato incontro al famoso padre di Raffaello, che era già nella pieve, ora cattedrale della città di Pescia, non solo non resta inferiore, ma gloriosamente combatte, ed è sentimento di professori eccellenti, non dirò fiorentini, ma della scuola di Roma e di Lombardia, che tra quei due quadri resti superiore nel pregio il Cristo risorgente del nostro Frate, atteso specialmente che il quadro di Raffaello non è della terza sua più perfetta maniera.’ Gabburri goes on to say that the defining characteristic of the third manner, which Raphael achieved later, was the mastering of outlines with great artistry: ‘Siccome la terza maniera di Raffaello non in altro consiste, che in certa maggiore grandiosità di contorni’. 69 Ibid.: ‘il Raffaello de’ fiorentini’. 70 Gabburri consulted 282 sources of which 225 were Italian, 29 French, 10 Dutch, 7 Spanish, 3 English, 5 German, 1 Danish and 1 Portuguese (most of the non-Italian ones were also available in Latin); see Cecconi, Gelli, Nastasi, Viale, eds, ‘Bibliografia Gabburriana’, pp. 1-19.

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Andrea del Sarto and Albrecht Dürer and prints after Raphael’s paintings.71 In his Vite, as

in his collection, he seems to have tried to be as inclusive as possible; this was also one of

main principles adopted by French collectors Mariette and Crozat.72 Furthermore,

Gabburri’s activity as a writer and a collector were complementary and followed the same

general principles.

Although it remained unpublished, Gabburri’s biographical dictionary of artists was

a source of inspiration for other works of similar or even of greater ambition. Pietro Zani

(1748-1821), for instance, states in the first of his eight encyclopedic volumes on the

method of fine arts that, while he was in Parma, his great friend Filippo Piale sent him

Gabburri’s autograph manuscript to help him with his own work.73 Zani’s remark shows

that the manuscript had some circulation and that it served as precedent for similarly large-

scale projects, which continued throughout the nineteenth century.74

71 See the following entries: 11, 13, 16, 19, 23, 64, 71-72, 74, 422, 423, 427, 433, 498 for drawings and 69 for prints at http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/COLLEZIONE_GABBURRI.pdf 72 R. Bacou, I grandi disegni italiani delle collezione Mariette al Louvre di Parigi, Milan 1982, esp. pp. 5-80. 73 P. Zani, Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti, 11 vols, Parma 1817-1819, I, p. 41: ‘frattanto l’ottimo mio amico Filippo Piale mi annunziò d’aver fatto l’acquisto dell’Abbecedario autografo del cel. Cav. Gaburri. Avrei voluto poter volare a Firenze per osservarlo sull’istante; ma il cortese amico mi spedì ben presto il Gaburri in Parma ov’io erami trasferito nel mese di Settembre del 1803 per dare l’ultima mano alla presente opera, arrichendola di nuove osservazioni tratte de’ libri di questa pubblica Biblioteca.’ 74 E.g., Luigi Lanzi, Storia pittorica illustrata, 3 vols, Bassano 1795-1796; Aubin Louis Millin, Dictionnaire des beaux-arts, 3 vols, Paris 1806; and d’Agincourt, Histoire de l’art.

198

GENERAL CONCLUSION

My purpose in this dissertation has been to illustrate the reception of early

Renaissance works of art in Venice and Florence between 1550 and 1800 by examining a

selection of writings from both cities. I sought to identify elements which contributed to

the evaluation of the ‘primitives’, changes which occured in attitudes towards these artists

during this period and the motives which led to these developments. I also investigated

whether these writings had any influence on the activity of collecting early Renaissance art

works. My comparative analysis of primary sources from both cities has drawn attention to

the continuities and changes which characterized writings on early Renaissance art in this

period and to the different approaches to the art of the past adopted by exponents of the

distinctive Venetian and Florentine traditions – whether authors of guidebooks and

biographies of artists or connoisseurs and collectors.

An important feature which defines most of the works discussed in this dissertation

is campanilismo. By looking at these texts in detail, I found that Venetian and Florentine

writers promoted their local art in different ways: in Venice, there was more reliance on

critical analysis and artistic appreciation of early works of art; in Florence, historiographical

issues such as the origins of art in Italy and the role played by Florentine artists in that

development were more central. My findings have also shown that, within both the

Venetian and the Florentine traditions, some features remained unchanged throughout the

period covered in this study and some underwent significant changes, which affected the

perception of the art of the past. These changes were not always predictable and did not

necessarily lead to a clear and straightforward path to the re-evaluation of the early

Renaissance art.

My examination of Venetian guidebooks and biographies of artists has shown that

there were differences of approach towards the art of the past and that, unsurprisingly,

certain accounts were more elaborate or nuanced than others. Venetian authors considered

three key aspects in their assessment of early Renaissance paintings: the religious, the

historical and the artistic. Some, especially Carlo Ridolfi and Marco Boschini, were inclined

to stress the religious element, praising the ability of paintings by artists such as Giovanni

Bellini and Marco Basaiti to inspire devotion; while others, most notably Francesco

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Sansovino, emphasized the historical value of art works and included ones which were no

longer extant (for example, the frescoes in the Palazzo Ducale which were destroyed by

fire) for documentary purposes. These two angles from which sixteenth- and seventeenth-

century Venetian writers re-evaluated earlier art revealed little in terms of their personal

preferences or taste. They did, however, enable writers to assess early art critically, to

disseminate an established artistic vocabulary and to follow patterns which would continue

to typify Venetian artistic literature throughout the centuries under investigation. For

instance, it was generally acknowledged that the earliest examples of Venetian art such as

the works of Guariento, Nicoletto Semitecolo and Jacobello del Fiore were characterized by

simplicity and by a lack of softness in rendering the figures, which translated into a hard,

dry and greccheggiante manner. Artists such as Bartolommeo Vivarini, Giovanni Bellini,

Vittore Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano and Marco Basaiti, on the other hand, were always

admired, whether for the colouring, the gracious attitudes of the figures or their ability to

inspire devotion.

A more complex evaluation of early Venetian works of art began to take shape in

the eighteenth century, with noticeable changes coming especially from Antonio Maria

Zanetti the Younger. Drawing on the legacy of Boschini, he set out clearer artistic criteria

for judging and selecting the works to be treated in his writings. In comparison to his

predecessors, Zanetti more frequently stated his own views on the art of the past, expressed

preferences for certain works and even left out artists such as Guariento, Giorgio

Veneziano, Gentile da Fabriano, Cristoforo Parmese, Bellin Bellino and Francesco Bissolo

who did not measure up to his standards. These changes were also reflected in his use of a

richer array of pictorial terms for describing paintings.

I have also uncovered some evidence that writings on early Venetian paintings had

an impact on the art market, the activity of collecting and the methods of displaying

collections between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. From the modest, but

significant, collection of drawings owned by Ridolfi, which was intended to illustrate the

evolution of artistic style from the Trecento to the Cinquecento, to the more complex

attempts by Carlo Lodoli and Girolamo Manfrin in the eighteenth century to build up

collections which were displayed chronologically. Furthermore, the collector and

connoisseur Giovanni Maria Sasso drew on this art literature in his attempt to encourage

his clients to buy early Renaissance works of art. Both his Venezia pittrice and his

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correspondence have been analysed in this dissertation and have proved to be revealing of

Sasso’s concern to promote a taste for early Venetian painting, even though his choices of

art works and his ranking of artists were at times unexpected and did not always correspond

to those of his predecessors.

Florentine writers had a very different approach to the art of the past. Biographers

of artists, starting with Giorgio Vasari, attached considerable importance to the context in

which works of art were produced and offered a broader historical perspective on the

evolution of artistic styles and individual artists. Less attention was paid than in Venetian art

literature to the critical analysis of the works of art discussed. The exception is Francesco

Bocchi, who included evocative accounts in his guidebook, expressed admiration for Fra

Angelico’s devotional and pious compositions, and maintained that Donatello and

Masaccio were models of excellence who had inspired later artists such as Andrea del Sarto,

Raphael and Michelangelo. While continuing to appreciate the artists praised by Bocchi,

guidebook writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries centred their attention more

on the historical value of earlier art works and emphasized the importance of Cimabue and

Giotto for the advancement of art.

The publication of four editions of Vasari’s Lives between the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries indicated that there was a growing interest in this work. Editors

sometimes took the opportunity to add their own touches and to reinterpret Vasari’s

conception of art history. While Carlo Manolessi’s interventions were discreet and did not

affect the content of the Lives, Giovanni Gaetano Bottari’s additions enriched Vasari’s text

with historical and artistic data about artists, as well as ideas about the conservation and

restoration of early Tuscan works of art. He also advocated their reproduction in the form

of prints as a means of preserving the artistic past and making it available to a wider

audience. Even though Bottari’s project of producing an illustrated history of art from

Cimabue to Raphael was not brought to completion, other writers in eighteenth-century

Florence welcomed this idea; and Marco Lastri executed it in the form of a two-volume

album of prints accompanied by text entries containing biographical information about the

artists, followed by descriptions and interpretations of their works. The emergence of such

projects in Florence was an important step in the process of re-evaluating the art of the

past, especially because they brought together the visual and the written traditions.

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The third editor of Vasari’s Lives, Tomasso Gentili, also sought to make his readers

aware of the importance of early Tuscan artists and their works by adding instructive

historical information, recording inscriptions and mentioning lost works of art. Vasari’s last

eighteenth-century editor, Guglielmo della Valle, mounted the most serious challenge to

Vasari’s views, above all, about the origins of art in Italy; instead of promoting Florentine

art like his predecessors, he indulged in Pisan and Sienese campanilismo. This polemical

position also led him to shift attention away from the Florentine ‘primitives’ and towards

early aritsts from Pisa and Siena.

Vasari’s Lives also inspired larger-scale projects such as Francesco Maria Niccolò

Gabburri’s unpublished Le vite. A compilation of biographies of artists written in the form

of dictionary entries, Gabburri’s work occupies a significant place within the tradition of

Florentine writings on art in the eighteenth century. While his entries do not say much

about his personal taste or preferences, they do tell us about his approach to the history of

Italian art: abandoning the campanilismo of his predecessors, he instead offered a global view

of art: seeking to be as inclusive as possible, he adopted an encyclopedic perspective, which

incorporated and transmitted the written tradition of both Italian and non-Italian artistic

literature.

This dissertation has explored the largely neglected history of the reception of

Italian ‘primitives’ between 1550 and 1800 by focusing on art literature written in Venice

and Florence. I have shown that the art of previous generations, and of the early

Renaissance in particular, continued to be written about throughout the period 1550-1800.

Venetian and Florentine writings on art, although taking different approaches, underwent

significant changes in this period which had implications for the eighteenth century. Views

of past art became more articulate and acquired greater clarity; and writers started to discuss

not only the artistic qualities of works which were appreciated but also why others were not

highly regarded or collected. The texts examined here reveal that much late medieval and

early Renaissance art was prized by patrons and collectors throughout the sixteenth,

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This result shows that what was often referred to as

‘ancient’ painting was valued during this period and therefore challenges the notion, still

accepted by many scholars, that the ‘primitives’ were not appreciated or collected before

the nineteenth century.

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